When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, Peter Godwin
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, Peter Godwin
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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun
A Memoir of Africa

Author: Peter Godwin

Narrator: Peter Godwin

Unabridged: 12 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/12/2020

Synopsis

After his father’s heart attack in 1984, Peter Godwin began a series of pilgrimages back to Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, from Manhattan, where he now lives. On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe’s dramatic spiral downwards into the jaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years. Then Godwin discovered a shocking family secret that helped explain their loyalty. Africa was his father’s sanctuary from another identity, another world. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.

About Peter Godwin

Peter Godwin was born and raised in Zimbabwe. He is the author of six nonfiction books including Mukiwa, which received the George Orwell Prize and the Esquire-Apple-Waterstones award, and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, which won the Borders Original Voices Award. His book, The Fear, was selected by The New Yorker as a best book of the year. He has taught writing at Wesleyan and Columbia and served as President of the PEN American Center. He is an Orwell fellow and a Guggenheim fellow. He lives in New York City. Follow him on X @PeterGodwin.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Caroline on June 28, 2015

. For me, personally, I think this is the saddest book I have ever read. Written by a superbly evocative writer - Africa commentator and renowned journalist,Peter Godwin - it details the trials of people living in Zimbabwe between 1996 and 2003. Parallel to this it is also a memoir of his family at th......more

Goodreads review by Spudsie on August 03, 2008

This book will haunt you. It haunts me. I was in a hotel room in Chicago trying to get ready for an early morning conference session. I was watching “Morning Joe” on MSNBC when Peter Godwin came on. I was not familiar with him, but listening to him talk about Zimbabwe intrigued me. Despite purloinin......more

Goodreads review by Pamela on May 15, 2008

The author, Peter Godwin, grew up as a white Zimbabwean, just like Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Lets Go to the Dogs tonight. He brilliantly shares his experience living under Robert Mugabe, who has been the country's dicator since the 1970's. My problem, however, is how he portrays his parents,......more

Goodreads review by Elie on January 21, 2009

Godwin tries too hard to tacitly excuse himself and other whites who stayed on in Zimbabwe after majority rule. He glosses over fighting on the wrong side of Zimbabwe's war for independence and never properly questions his privileged upbringing and the British status quo. Most of the examples he emp......more

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