“This Mournable Body” completes Tsitsi Dangarembga trilogy.

This Mournable Body is the third in the Tsitsi Dangarembga trilogy that started off with Nervous Conditions and was followed on by The Book of Not. The new novel is published by Graywolf Publishers.

In 1988, a novel Nervous Conditions written by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga focusing on the story of a Shona family in post-colonial Rhodesia during the 1960s was published. That book was considered by some to be one of the defining novels to come out of the continent in the 20^th century. The book was followed by The Book of Not by the same writer in 2006.

The end of the trilogy is finally here as Tsitsi Dangarembga shared the cover for her new publication This Mournable Body on Social Media. The book published by Graywolf is described thus in the blurb.

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.

Are we pleased that the book is out? Hell yeah. Go get it people. On Amazon. On Thriftbooks. If you can get it, go for it.