Nehanda

Introduction by M G Vassanji

In the late nineteenth century white settlers and administrators arrive to occupy the African country of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). Nehanda, a village girl, is recognized through omens and portents as a saviour. The resulting uprising by the Africans is brutally crushed but looks forward to the war of independence that succeeded a century later. Told in lucid, poetic prose, this is a gripping story about the first meeting of a people with their colonizer.

” . . . crisp and touching . . . restrained and well-focused . . .”
The Weekly Mail & Guardian (South Africa)

” . . . a meditation on fate and language . . . a compelling story.”
The Toronto Star

“Reading [it] . . . is like savouring a sweet delicacy. Every page possesses its own special flavour; every morsel, a sinful delight.”
Books in Canada

” . . . elegant . . . magical . . . ”
The Toronto Review

$12.99$22.95

Publication Date (Reprint): November 2018

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-988449-54-8
Page size: 5.5″ x 8.5″
128 pages

eBook ISBN: 978-1-988449-57-9

Photo of Yvonne Vera

Yvonne Vera (1964-2005) was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and later attended York University in Toronto, gaining her doctorate in English Literature in 1995. Her fiction has won a number of international awards, including the Tucholsky Prize from Swedish PEN (2004) and the Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa (2002). Her novel Nehanda was short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize (Africa, 1995), which she won two years later for Under the Tongue (1997).

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