When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“Autobiography. One of the best books I've read in a long time. Informative about history and politics of Zimbabwee, but also a loving family story. Beautifully written.”

• Rated 5 stars

“It is hard to imagine living through the events going on at the time in Zimbabwe. Reading this truly makes you appreciate the overall stability that comes with living in the US.”

• Rated 3 stars

“A part political history/current event book about the last ten years in Zimbabwe, a country that is falling apart under the rule of the ZANU-PF tyrant Robert Mugabe, part family memoir about Godwin's family, whose parents were British and Pole Jewish immigrants.

Although the book is strong, I wonder about the one sided nature of the story, since the white farmers do not have a hint of racist anger in them. It would seem to me that people that have been evicted from farms, had friends murdered and have been forced to move across the border to Mozambique would have some people among them that would resort to some racist feeling ( I personally think it is only natural that a percentage of them would have some racist feelings). Yet, you never read about these people.

Also, the political portion could be better served if it discussed the history of the MDC, it's leader Morgan Tsvangirai and what it's members have faced (especially with the current election). However, since it is a memoir, it is a minor detail and maybe not necessary.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Ma Titwonky said: 5 stars
This book is a lot of subjects rolled into one: it's a memoir of Peter Godwin's life growing up in Zimbabwe, it's a tribute to his parents, and it's also about Jews during the Holocaust. It was a fascinating read for me particularly because I knew little to nothing about Zimbabwe. Insofar as educating myself about this country, Godwin's book was a good place to start. The conditions Godwin describes in Zimbabwe as it deteriorates under the dictatorship of brutality and greed are nearly impossible to imagine and heartbreaking as well. I highly recommend this book.”

• Rated 5 stars

“I have recently read a handful of books on Africa, trying to understand the tragedy and trauma of this beautiful continent, full of amazing resources, both natural and human. Of all the memoirs, this one by Peter Godwin is my favorite. It is the story of a white family in Zimbabwe, which adds the personal color to my growing understanding of the facts about this country, "gone from bread bin to dustbin" (Godwin, 339). It also includes important themes of family history and commitment, the atrocities of racial hatred, and the beauty of unity and selfless love. With the runoff election of Robert Mugabe next week, (June 27) I'm thankful to have read this book, so that I can better understand what the people of Zimbabwe have endured for almost three decades, and the "real racial unity" that has been created in Zimbabwe through the "common bond forged in the furnace of resistance to an oppressive rule" (Godwin, 320).”

• Rated 3 stars

“The Zulus and the Vendas of southern Africa believe that a solar eclipse occurs when a crocodile eats the sun. It is “the very worst of omen” explains Zimbabwean-born and raised author Peter Godwin. The prediction comes to pass and is recounted in this “white African’s” memories of Zimbabwe, an articulate, wrenching narrative of personal and political struggle that is both eloquent and tragic.

Godwin’s native Zimbabwe was once a land of promise and potential. Under the repressive regime of post-civil war dictator Robert Mugabe, the country becomes home of “the world’s fastest shrinking economy,” (p. 155), the politics of envy, reverse racism and “ethnic cleansing” (p. 176. It’s a country where local “commanders” adopt names like “Hitler Hunzvi” and “Stalin Mau Mau.” It’s a country where Mugabe’s “farm seizure program” (p. 177), and “land redistribution” schemes are little more than government-sanctioned stealing. It’s a country of massacres, thievery and thuggery, hyperinflation, collapses in farm production, fuel and food shortfalls and a disintegrating, phantom infrastructure. It’s a mess. But it’s not the only thing that’s a mess.

Godwin writes, “This is what this vile president (Mugabe) has done to us – made scavengers of us all and stripped these grown men of their dignity as they fight over a worn bike tire. Reduced us all to desperadoes and thieves, made us small and bleak and old and tired. Made us lose our love of life itself. Split our families and left my parents impoverished, alone, afraid” (p. 246). As the country disintegrates, so does Godwin’s family.

Beginning and ending with his father’s death, which parallels the country’s, Godwin chronicles the activities and excesses of the Mugabe government over eight years - July 1996 to February 2004. He reports on kangaroo courts, threats, intimidation, violence, extortion, massive voter fraud, mayhem, “Mugabe’s race-baiting stagecraft,” and marauding “war vets” (wovits) and their effect on his family and friends. Godwin also details some of the desperate, often futile but courageous attempts of opposition parties and private citizens to stay the madness or aid their neighbors and friends.

Possibly the most wrenching portion of Godwin’s tome is chapter 17. Here the conflicted son and sibling narrates the deteriorating physical health of his parents, the reburial of his sister Jain, and the death throes of his home country. As Zimbabwe descends further into madness, Godwin’s elderly, frail parents resolutely refuse to leave, clinging to their farm and his mother’s clinic, where she’s served as a physician for decades. Godwin’s distant, aloof father, George, to whom the book is dedicated, reluctantly – and finally - reveals his own family secrets and the source of his “autobiographical amnesia.”

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a haunting, harrowing narrative of the disintegration of a family and a country. Exquisitely written with fascinating detail and occasional rough edges, Crocodile is a highly readable, heart-rending memoir brimming with panache, pathos, hope and despair. A modern tragedy too powerful to ignore.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Very interesting view of events in Zimbabwe from a journalist who grew up there and loved the place it was. Gives an inside look into Mugabe's world...very frightening.”

• Rated 0 stars

“An excellent read on the very relevant and current topic of Zimbabwe. Loved this book! Shelley”

• Rated 4 stars

“This is a fascinating personal tale that simultaneously weaves together the politics and culture of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe during the anti-white rule of Mugabe with the after-effects of the Holocaust generation. We hear so much about the suppression of blacks; this is a look at the terorization of the white farmers in this post-colonial African country. ”