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In this accessible and authoritative book, Godfrey Kanyenze provides a comprehensive and far-reaching analysis of the socio-economic development in Zimbabwe in light of the expanding authoritarianism and the ongoing destruction of democratic institutions during the four decades after independence. Kanyenze describes the various phases of the socio-economic development starting with 1980 when the people of Zimbabwe saw their hard-won independence and new democracy as a promise for a "e;better life for all"e;. Kanyenze highlights how by dismantling all barriers of economic and legal restraint, and that despite being necessary, The land reform programme put the political and financial interests of the elite before those of the people which continues to this day. Kanyenze reveals the governmental attacks on civil society, and notes how economic policy was not even part of an "e;authoritarian bargain"e;, an implicit arrangement between ruling elites and citizens whereby citizens relinquish political freedom in exchange for public goods. And he concludes this analysis with a current update of Zimbabwe today, where citizens have nothing -neither political freedom nor public goods. This impressive and gripping account of an authoritarian capitalist system and a country in decline is a must-read for students, researchers, policymakers and those who want to better understand how politics and the economy, interests, conflicts, and power work together.

Zimbabwe celebrated its independence just over 40 years ago. While the nation is no longer young, its population certainly is: over 60% are under the age of 35. Understanding youth perspectives and experiences is therefore vitally important. Fending for Ourselves reviews the recent histories and realities of youths in Zimbabwe, offering a distinguished range of authors exploring issues of education, employment and work, the urban experience, involvement in the informal economy, mental health, and political activity. Importantly, the collection examines successive generations of youth in Zimbabwe to show how ideas, experiences and reactions to the social, political, and economic context have shifted over time. Many of the issues affecting youth over the past 40 years have been traumatic and distressing - physical and mental abuse, declining employment and educational opportunities, poverty, ill-health and loss of hope - but this collection underlines the agency and resilience of Zimbabwe's young people, and how they have found ways to navigate the political, social, and economic terrains they occupy.

Sr Janice McLaughlin (1942-2021) was a remarkable woman, an American Maryknoll nun who dedicated her life to the twin causes of education and justice. This memoir, completed just before her death, tells her story with refreshing candor.

Without adequate protection and consideration from the state, women were left out of Zimbabwe's Fast Land Reform Programme at the turn of the century. Leaving them to fight for land in a murky, convoluted system will not address women's rights to it. Giving specific ethical and legal attention to women's rights and needs is the only way to guard against land and other resources begin co-opted by the privileged and those with the requisite social, financial and political capital. Some commentators have argued that Zimbabwean women were better off identifying with Zimbabwean men as as blacks in taking land from the former white farmers than to concentrate on their needs as women during the FTLRP. The primary battle was to take the land from the white farmer, after which a secondary battle by women to take land from men would ensue. Twenty years after the commencement of the FTLRP, the question remains whether the secondary battle by black women to take over land from black men has started and whether there are any chances that such a battle will ever be fought and won.

Zimbabwe @ 40 is a celebration of the country's four decades of independence and statehood. Forty years is a relatively short period in a nation's life, but it is a formative period: what lessons can be learnt from the successes and failures, challenges and opportunities of the last 40 years? What should be avoided in the next 40? Lloyd Sachikonye and David Kaulemu have assembled a distinguished team of scholars to address these questions, and the book focuses on issues that characterise the country's development trajectory: the linkage between values and institutions; defects in its democracy; the 'curse' of mineral and agricultural endowment; the impact of migration; and the social exclusion of women and young people. The book is written from a depth of commitment to a just, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe, and represents a 'work in progress', reflecting the continuing research, evaluation and dialogue that each of the authors is engaged in, and signalling the nature and direction of future such work. As the editors conclude: 'None of the chapters are pessimistic, nor are they negative about the country. They are realistic about the gravity of the historical moment the nation faces and the high moral, political and economic mountains we must climb before we can see the Promised Land. Yet they are full of hope - they are convinced that we have not come to the end of history.'

At a turbulent historical moment, Versions of Zimbabwe: New Approaches to Literature and Culture considers the relationships between Zimbabwe's creative literature, history and politics. It presumes that literature and culture cannot be understood separately from larger social trends; and that besides being legitimate subjects of study in themselves, through foregrounding literary and cultural issues, insights into the present crisis inflicting the country can be achieved.The book is the result of a collaboration of scholars from southern Africa and overseas, whose work emphasises hitherto overshadowed subjects of literature, exposing new and untried approaches to Zimbabwean writing. The contributors focus on pluralities, inclusiveness and the breaking of boundaries, and elucidate how literary texts are betraying multiple versions and opinions of Zimbabwe, arguing that only a multiplicity of opinions on Zimbabwe can do the complexity of the society and history justice.Individual chapters consider the works of celebrated Zimbabwean authors such as Dambudzo Marechera, Alexandra Fuller and the late Yvonne Vera, alongside several Zimbabwean writers less well- known outside the country. Works of literature in the three major literary languages of Zimbabwe - Shona, Ndebele and English - are examined, alongside autobiography, history and memoir, questions of race in literature and racial identities of Zimbabwean writers, and the oft-neglected, arguably underrated Zimbabwean poetry. The contributors include Annie Gagiano, Caroline Rooney, Tommy Matshakayile-Ndlovu and Terence Ranger.

Then a Wind Blew is set in the final months of the war in Rhodesia, before it became Zimbabwe, and the story unfolds through the voices of three women. Susan Haig, a white settler, has lost one son in the war and seen her other son declared 'unfit for duty'. Nyanye Maseka has fled with her sister to a guerrilla camp in Mozambique, her home village destroyed, her mother missing. Beth Lytton is a nun in a church mission in an African Reserve, watching her adopted country tear itself apart. The three women have nothing in common. Yet the events of war conspire to draw them into each other's lives in a way that none of them could have imagined. This absorbing and sensitive novel develops and intertwines their stories, showing us the ugliness of war for women caught up in it and reminding us that, in the end, we all depend on each other.

At Independence in 1980, Julius Nyerere called Zimbabwe 'the jewel of Africa', and cautioned its new leaders not to tarnish it. Tragically, they paid no heed to Africa's esteemed elder statesmen. Arguably - and only if one ignores the carnage of Gukurahundi - the first decade was a developmental one, with resources being used prudently to benefit the formerly disadvantaged majority population. However, the 1990s witnessed a transition from a developmental to a predatory leadership which saw Zimbabwe cross the millennial line in crisis, where it has remained ever since. While many African countries have moved forward over the last three decades, Zimbabwe has gone relentlessly backwards, save for the four-year interregnum of the tripartite coalition government, 2009-2013. Virtually all development indicators point in the wrong direction and the crisis of poverty, unemployment, and the erosion of health. education and other public goods continues unabated. The imperatives of political survival and power politics supersede those of sound economics and public welfare. Moreover, unless good politics are conjoined with a sound people-first policy, the country will continue sliding downhill. Zimbabwe's Trajectory tells the story of the country's post-independence dynamics and its recent descent into becoming one of the three most unhappy countries in the world.

Mothers of the Revolution is one of the most remarkable chronicles to emerge from the Zimbabwean liberation war (1967-1980). Here are first-hand accounts from rural women living in all parts of the country who stayed behind during the war; the women whose sons and daughters secretly left home to join the liberation armies and sometimes never returned; the women who single-handedly, not only had to keep their homes, but who fed the freedom fighters; women, who as the war intensified, were often caught in the crossfire.

Dew in the Morning was written when the author, Shimmer Chinodya, was eighteen. The intensity of childhood memory is sharp and immediate. Godi, the young boy whose life we experience as he grows up, perceives more than he understands. The ambivalence or instability of the text lies at the juncture between the felt experience of the child, and the rational, interpretative, analysis of the adult. A Bildungsroman, Chinodya captures the centrality of land in the national consciousness: its beauty, its rhythms, its seasons and its fertility. But he does not romanticise the hardships: the droughts, poor harvests, over-crowding - particularly as a result of the inflow of resettled people - and the tensions over land and between peoples as they struggle to survive. Good humour, strict morality, hard work, and mutual support can be undermined by corrupt practice, or tainted by traditional ceremonies that are as frightening as they are powerful, and raise essential questions of belief and validity. Dew in the Morning, is a tender, evocative novel of growing up, but in it we see the seeds of many issues which Chinodya will dwell on in his later novels: familial tensions, the taut interplay of tradition and modernity, ancestral beliefs and Christianity.

With a raucous St Patrick's Day dinner at Fort Salisbury (Harare) in 1891, a mere seven months after the Pioneer Column raised their flag on Cecil Square, the Mashonaland Irish Association was founded. Not only is it the oldest expatriate association in Zimbabwe, the MIA is the oldest Irish association on the African continent. The association developed into a vehicle for celebrating Irishness through a busy social calendar and welfare programmes. For over a century, the MIA has weathered the various challenges and upheavals of a shared colonial experience and Zimbabwe's struggle for independence. Today, it continues to celebrate all things Irish while embracing its diaspora as it approaches its thirteenth decade of existence.This Miscellany charts the association from its inception to the present day with contributions from historians, scholars, writers and poets, priests, nuns, missionaries, ex-MIA Presidents and members; the diverse contributions range from the colonial Anglo-Irish to the Jewish-Irish experience and throughout, personalities have been resurrected, colourful ones recorded and even the Minute books examined; all attest to the richness of the association, its events but above all its members. Cumulatively, and beyond the stories of individuals, the narrative provides new insights into the layered complexity of the colonial experience, and the adaptation (or not) of people of a different culture and belief into a foreign setting.

Beyond Appearances: Reflections on Principles and Practice is a collection of 121 articles written between 2005 and 2008 for The Zimbabwean. As the title suggests, David Harold Barry, SJ invites us to rect upon our relationship with society. He asks repeatedly whether we should put ourselves or otherst, and what happens when we ignore the plight of those around us. We are also invited to rect on the nature of power, our interaction with it, and our attitude towards it: do we gullibly agree to do what we're told without thinking, or do we rect on the consequences of apathy and inaction. This is a book to keep beside your bed, a book with which to begin the day as a citizen of the world and an individual for whom every action matters.

Strife is a rich and densely written novel that provides a dark expos? of the tension between modernity and tradition, and deep insights into culture in Zimbabwe in the 21st century. Chinodya explores the powerful draw that conflicting ideologies exercise over an emerging middle-class that at once yearns for autonomy and unconsciously desires the irresponsibility of an all-pervading destiny. Tracing the Gwanagara?s roots back over a century, Chinodya interweaves past and the present, juxtaposing incidents never forgotten or resolved, revealing how memory becomes an actor in lived time. A large family grows up in Gweru. Their father aspires to be an enlightened Christian man; he sees his children through school and college where they do well. But as adults, they are struck by illness. Who is to blame? Who is to cure these ailments? What wrongs have they committed to offend the ancestors? How can atonement be made? Can education, science and medicine provide any solution? Their mother, the moon huntress, seeks out the answers and the cures in traditional beliefs and customs.

Drawing on communications 'rescued' from the shredders in the last days of Rhodesia, enlivened by photographs and memories - both her own and those of her colleagues - Maia Chenaux-Repond tells the story of her work as the Provincial Community Development Officer (Women) for Mashonaland and South in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the 1970s. There are no records whatsoever in the National Archives of Zimbabwe about the Community Development Section (Women), even though it was active in all the provinces. In the absence of other documentary sources, and all other provincial officers long having emigrated or died, this account of her work fills a significant gap in the pre-independence history of Zimbabwe. The crucial focus of the Women's Section on improving the lives and skills of women in the rural areas became progressively more difficult when the civil war intensified from the early 1970 as rural people - and the development workers themselves - were moved into 'Protected Villages', and as the Ministry became increasingly militarized.

For the past two decades, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has been the dominant paradigm in water resources. This book explores how ideas of IWRM are being translated and adapted in Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Grounded in social science theory and research, it highlights the importance of politics, history and culture in shaping water management practices and reform, and demonstrates how Africa has clearly been a laboratory for IWRM. While a new cadre of professionals made IWRM their mission, we show that poor women and men may not have always benefitted. In some cases IWRM has also offered a distraction from more critical issues such as water and land grabs, privatisation, the negative impacts of water permits, and a range of institutional ambiguities that prevent water allocations to small and poor water users. By critically examining the interpretations and challenges of IWRM, the book contributes to improving water policies and practices and making them more locally appropriate in Africa and beyond.