222 mm x 146 mm, softcover, 272 pages RRP: R190, ISBN 978-1-4152-0071-1 Publication date: June 2009, Category: Fiction Description In 1981 a young American historian arrives in Zimbabwe, full of idealism and enthusiasm for the benevolent new Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and the post-colonial new beginning for that country. His historic research leads him to an apparent murder case, unresolved since the days of the bush war. As he draws – or is lead – or yet mislead – closer to an answer, he becomes involved with a local woman through whom he soon finds himself in the inner circle of the new ruling class. Once the euphoria starts dissipating he encounters increasingly menacing instances of corruption and repression, including threats to himself to abandon his investigation. With every new revelation a new layer of decay is exposed and with that, his idealism retreats. In the process, the meaning of the novel’s title, taken from Mugabe’s conciliatory rhetoric at the beginning, gradually comes to mean: we are all trapped and compromised into the moral tangle and the destruction into which all the promise has degenerated. James Kilgore’s debut is an extremely accomplished and compelling novel that deftly employs the instruments of a detective thriller. From We are all Zimbabweans Now, page 18         Good morning, sir,’ says a tall blonde woman at the desk.‘Do you have a booking?’         Mugabe’s picture hangs on the wall behind her. They’ve washed away his wrinkles. He’s wearing those dark-framed glasses from the days of the liberation war. He’s not smiling, but I like having him there. I unzip seven pockets in my backpack before I find the well-folded piece of paper that confirms my booking and hand it to her.         ’Aaron,’ she says in a voice now half an octave higher, ‘take the gentleman’s bags to Room 124.’         ’Yes, madam,’ he replies, picking up the luggage he has just set down. I follow the slow-treading Aaron down a corridor of more brown carpet to my room.         The mattress sags and the nightstand drawer smells of mothballs. I’m coated with lack-of-sleep slime and ready for my first shower on the African continent. Instead, I collapse on the bed. I fidget to find a comfortable position. After a few minutes the springs relax and I’m asleep in Zimbabwe, exactly where I want to be. To read on What others say A compelling story … the present prefigured in a recent past. — Jeremy Cronin Read an article in the Citizen. Read Rick de Satgé’s article in Noseweek. Read an interview with James Kilgore in the Sunday Times. Read a review in The Witness. Read an interview an review in Amandla! here. Read Rob Gaylard’s review on LitNet. To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za