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Winner of the Macmillan Prize for African Adult Fiction An uncompromising novel by one of Africa's premiere writers, detailing the horrors of civil war in luminous, haunting prose In 1980, after decades of guerilla war against colonial rule, Rhodesia earned its hard-fought-for independence from Britain. Less than two years thereafter when Mugabe rose to power in the new Zimbabwe, it signaled the begining of brutal civil unrest that would last nearly a half decade more. WithThe Stone Virgins Yvonne Vera examines the dissident movement from the perspective of two sisters living in a small township outside of Bulawayo. In a portrait painted in successive impressions of life before and after the liberation, Vera explores the quest for dignity and a centered existence against a backdrop of unimaginable violence; the twin instincts of survival and love; the rival pulls of township and city life; and mankind's capacity for terror, beauty, and sacrifice. One sister will find a reasonfor hope. One will not make it through alive. Weaving historical fact within a story of grand passions and striking endurance, Vera has gifted us with a powerful and provocative testament to the resilience of the Zimbabwean people.… (més)
A difficult novel to read, dealing with the violence around and after Zimbabwe's independence from a very direct, personal and shatteringly painful viewpoint. A young woman is murdered in a village outside Bulawayo; her sister is also attacked and left seriously injured and disfigured, and has to find a way to get back to something like normal life.
We are shown the world in which these things happen in an apparently objective, poetic way — the scenery, the buildings, the weather and vegetation, the normal lives of the people in Bulawayo and the village, the fighters who have returned from the bush, the memories and visible signs of pre-colonial heritage — and we are taken into the minds of the women to participate in a very subjective way in what is happening to them, but we are left to work out for ourselves how these things fit together, what it is in the external world that might have provoked this outburst of violence, and what the world's (limited) resources for palliating its effects might be.
A rather beautiful book, full of memorable language and images, but not really a comforting read. Vera leaves her characters living in a mental world full of jagged edges and unexploded mines, and we aren't given much hope that they will be able to avoid them for long. ( )
I've been trying to get into this for a while but I've finally admitted defeat. Nearly halfway into it and it's beautifully written and there is nothing I can grab onto for the faint hope of a plot line. It's reminding me of Nadine Gordimer, I just can't seem to connect with what is happening. I won't give it up yet, I'll put it back on the shelf and give it another try sometime and maybe I'll be able to figure it out.
I found it that very hard to read. It’s not that there is no plot, or no characters whatsoever. But they are hard to anchor to as individuals. They appear very much as portions of a texture. I couldn’t really back away and see the whole picture, so I couldn’t hold on to that either. Nevertheless, I really liked these descriptions. Very evocative.
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
To John H.C. Jose For your essential and remarkable qualities, travels and earth harmonies
Primeres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Selborne Avenue in Bulawayo cuts from Fort Street (at Charter House), across to Jameson Road (of the Jameson Raid), through to Main Street, to Grey Street, to Abercorn Street, to Fife Street, to Rhodes Street, to Borrow Street, out into the lush Centenary Gardens with their fusion of dahlias, petunias, asters, red salvia, and mauve petrea bushes, onward to the National Museum, on the left side.
Citacions
Darreres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
His task is to learn to re-create the manner in which the tenderest branches bend, meet, and dry, the way grass folds smoothly over this frame and weaves a nest, the way it protects the cool, livable places within--deliverance.
Winner of the Macmillan Prize for African Adult Fiction An uncompromising novel by one of Africa's premiere writers, detailing the horrors of civil war in luminous, haunting prose In 1980, after decades of guerilla war against colonial rule, Rhodesia earned its hard-fought-for independence from Britain. Less than two years thereafter when Mugabe rose to power in the new Zimbabwe, it signaled the begining of brutal civil unrest that would last nearly a half decade more. WithThe Stone Virgins Yvonne Vera examines the dissident movement from the perspective of two sisters living in a small township outside of Bulawayo. In a portrait painted in successive impressions of life before and after the liberation, Vera explores the quest for dignity and a centered existence against a backdrop of unimaginable violence; the twin instincts of survival and love; the rival pulls of township and city life; and mankind's capacity for terror, beauty, and sacrifice. One sister will find a reasonfor hope. One will not make it through alive. Weaving historical fact within a story of grand passions and striking endurance, Vera has gifted us with a powerful and provocative testament to the resilience of the Zimbabwean people.
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Google Books — S'està carregant…
(3.44)
1
We are shown the world in which these things happen in an apparently objective, poetic way — the scenery, the buildings, the weather and vegetation, the normal lives of the people in Bulawayo and the village, the fighters who have returned from the bush, the memories and visible signs of pre-colonial heritage — and we are taken into the minds of the women to participate in a very subjective way in what is happening to them, but we are left to work out for ourselves how these things fit together, what it is in the external world that might have provoked this outburst of violence, and what the world's (limited) resources for palliating its effects might be.
A rather beautiful book, full of memorable language and images, but not really a comforting read. Vera leaves her characters living in a mental world full of jagged edges and unexploded mines, and we aren't given much hope that they will be able to avoid them for long. (