Black and Female

Zimbabwean writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga is the author of a trio of critically acclaimed novels. She’s also a political activist who was unjustly found guilty of “provoking violence” – via an entirely peaceful protest – by a court in her country just a week ago. For the first time, she has here turned her hand to the essay form, and the three thought-provoking pieces published in this slim volume trace her development as a black female creative person, skilfully knitting her own experiences into the wider story of colonial and post-colonial oppression. These impassioned essays blend the personal and the political to brilliant effect, providing a cogent and timely analysis of the devastating, long-term effects of empire on the bodies and psyches of the people it brutally subjugates.