100 BOOK REVIEWSembedded in the Zimbabwean experience, the novel has a universal significanceŠ as testified by its winning the prestigious Noma Award. Chenjerai Hove is tobe congratulated for producing such a powerful novel, his first written in English,and the reading public, undoubtedly, eagerly awaits his next book.Baobab Books are also to be congratulated on the excellent quality of thebook. Luke Tongoronga's illustrations are very striking and the cover is veryattractive indeed.University of Zimbabwe M. Z. MALABANervous Conditions By Tsitsi Dangarembga. Harare, Zimbabwe PublishingHouse, 1988, 204 pp., ISBN 0-949225-79-7, Z$ 13,20.First things first: this is a very well-written and absorbing novel. The writer's lucidprose style immediately involves the reader in the unfolding drama of the youngShona heroine growing up as she struggles to understand and to adapt to two verydifferent cultures and life-styles. As the young Tambudzai grows up she has tocome to terms with both the traditional African culture, as typified by her parents'homestead in the rural areas of the then Rhodesia, and the modern, Western wayof life as typified by the mission run by her wealthy, comparatively sophisticateduncle where she is educated. The narrator, blending the shrewd innocence of thechild she was and the reflective, slightly cynical woman she is new, sees bothsystems for what they are: unlike many African writers, Tsitsi Dangarembga doesnot view the rural homestead in nostalgic, sentimental terms; indeed there areseveral passages in the novel describing the poverty, squalor, and hopelessness ofTambudzai's parents' home with horrifying realism.But all is not sweetness and light on the other side either. The Western way oflife is portrayed as attractive, but dangerous. The strains of living in a foreignculture warp Tambudzai's uncle's essentially benevolent nature and mar hisrelationship with his daughter, Nyasha (whose mentality is more English thanShona as a result of spending most of her early childhood in England).Tambudzai's downtrodden mother sums up this predicament most succinctly:'It's the Englishness, it'll kill them all if they aren't careful' (p. 202). It is partly thisstrain of adapting to two conflicting cultures that gives rise to the 'nervousconditions' of the title.This novel is also about another kind of conflict, that between the sexes. It is, inthe narrator's own words, 'my story, the story of four women whom I loved, andour men' (p. 204). At first, Tambudzai sees women's subordinate position as part oftheir poverty, but comes to realize thatthe victimization... was universal. It didn't depen d on poverty, on lack of education or ontradition. It didn't depend on any of the things I thought it depended on. Men took iteverywhere with them... But what I didn't like was the way all the conflicts came back tothis question of femaleness. Fcmaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness (pp. 115-16).Each of the four women reacts differently to this attempted subjugation, and theiractions and attitudes make up a great deal of the interest of this book.All these points, though themselves very much worth writing about, wouldBOOK REVIEWS 101not of themselves make a good story, but Tsitsi Dangarembga's fluid style ofwriting, her ability to evoke the sights, sounds and smells of the rural Rhodesia ofthe 1960s and her knack of portraying the events and characters in her novel in alifelike and believable fashion make this novel 'a very good read'. Furthermore,this story, by its very na ture, widens the unde rstanding and deepens the sympathyof the reader, especially those readers who, like myself, have very little experienceof life in the rural areas of this country. This book deserves the success it hasachieved, notably in winning the Commonwealth Literature Prize (Africa region)University of Zimbabwe CAROLINE MACNAUG HTANLeeds Southern African Studies Leeds, Univ. of Leeds Southern African StudiesLeeds, Univ. of Leeds, African Studies Unit and Department of Politics, 1988-, pp.and price vary.This series of working papers began in 1988 and is already into its sixteenthpublication. They vary in length (20-40 pages A5) and in price (£1,50 - 2,00).The first to concern Zimbabwe was No. 5, M. Sato's The Organisation andEffectiveness of Cooperatives in Zimbabwe which was published in 1 988. Based onhis doctoral thesis (Leeds, 1987), Sato's paper traces the development of co-operatives since 1980 and attempts to delineate their position in the changing politicaleconomy of Zimbabwe.The next, No. 6, was D. Pankhurst's Women's Lives and Women's Struggles inRural Zimbabwe, also published in 1988 and based on her doctoral thesis (Liverpool,1982). This paper reports a study of a village in Mangwende Communal Land,undertaken in order to establish the linkages between gender relations andagriculture.The next, No. 7. was L. Cliffe's Prospects for Agriarian Transformation inZimbabwe, also published in 1988. This is an extended version of his essay, 'Theprospects for agricultural transformation in Zimbabwe', published in C. Stoneman(ed.), Zimbabwe's Prospects (London, Macmillan, 1988). In analysing the forces atwork, the author seems to have a gloomy view of the likelihood of change unless thegrip of technical experts and bureaucrats can be broken.The latest in the series to focus on Zimbabwe is L. Sachikonye's The State andAgribusiness in Zimbabwe: Plantations and Contract Farming, publis hed in 1989 andalso based on a doctoral thesis (Leeds, 1989). The term 'contract farming' here meansout-grower production, in this case of tea and sugar, under contract to large estatesowned largely by foreign capital. The study concentrates on the labour process amongout-growers and the erne rgence of differentiatio n between grower and o f competitionbetween out-growers and the workers on the plantations.R. S. R.