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This Mournable Body

A Novel

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This Mournable Body

By: Tsitsi Dangarembga
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
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About this listen

Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.

In This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangarembga returns to the protagonist of her acclaimed first novel, Nervous Conditions, to examine how the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation can sour over time and become a bitter and floundering struggle for survival.

As a last resort, Tambudzai takes an ecotourism job that forces her to return to her parents' impoverished homestead. It is this homecoming, in Dangarembga's tense and psychologically charged novel, that culminates in an act of betrayal, revealing just how toxic the combination of colonialism and capitalism can be.

©2018 Tsitsi Dangarembga (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Literary Fiction Fiction

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Profile Image for Warrentp

Tough going

Just didn’t enjoy the plot which seemed meandering and boring at times. Loved the hospital section. Protag was unlikeable / unsympathetic. Didn’t enjoy the 2nd person narration.

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A little difficult to follow

This was an interesting story as I had listened to the ones prior. It was a bit confusing and difficult to follow. It would have been flowing if Tambudzai telling her story as per the previous book. It really was engaging but difficult to follow.

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