Why a Booktrail?
1960s – 1990s: A child of the Gurkahundi massacre, uses any means necessary to obtain the family denied to him by the brutality of the regime.
House of Stone
What you need to know before your trail
Bukhosi has gone missing. His father, Abed, and his mother, Agnes, cling to the hope that he has run away, rather than been murdered by government thugs. Only the lodger seems to have any idea. Zamani has lived in the spare room for years now. Quiet, polite, well-read and well-heeled, he’s almost part of the family – but almost isn’t quite good enough for Zamani. Cajoling, coaxing and coercing Abed and Agnes into revealing their sometimes tender, often brutal life stories, Zamani aims to steep himself in borrowed family history, so that he can fully inherit and inhabit its uncertain future.
Travel Guide
Travel to Zimbabwe (formely Rhodesia)
A powerful (and often graphic) story of how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. The Gukurahundi was a series of massacres of Ndebele civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army from early 1983 to late 1987. There were many rallies and uprisings across the city of Bulawayo.The novel looks at the violence during Robert Mugabe’s brutal government.
“We were chanting side by side at the rally held by the Mthwakazi Secessionist Movement only nine days ago, on Sunday 7th October, in Stanley Square. The flame lillies were raging, the sunflowers sashaying and our secessionist leader Dumo spraying us with his saliva as he frothed up a call to arms, to succession, to revolution, to freedom.
Secede from the country Zimbabwe,’ he cried. “Secede!”
“Secede!” echoed our fevered chorus
“For our brothers killed in the ‘80s in the Gukurahundi Genocide!” he cried. “ Secede!”
BookTrail Boarding Pass: House of Stone
Destination: Zimbabwe Author/guide: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma Departure Time: 1960s – 1990s
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
