the letter (1985) • the play She No Longer Weeps (1987) • Nervous Conditions (1988) • The Book of Not (2006) • This Mournable Body (2018) • the short story collection An Untimely Love (2003) • narini and her donkey (2021) • and the nonfiction work Black and Female (2022) •
Title: Nervous Conditions
Author: Tsitsi Dangarembga
First Published: 1988, The Women’s Press Limited
Present Library Copy: Faber & Faber Limited, 2021
Language: English
Genre: Literary Fiction
Place of Writing: West Berlin, Germany(early 1980s - 1985)
Pages: 298
ISBN: 978-0-571-36812-9
Notes | Nervous Conditions (1988) is the cornerstone of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s literary oeuvre and the first novel in her acclaimed trilogy—forming a sweeping critique of postcolonial Zimbabwe, chronicling how the promise of liberation can sour into disillusionment—particularly for women. Nervous Conditions remains the most formally restrained and narratively cohesive of the three, marking a powerful debut and laying the groundwork for Dangarembga’s later, more fragmented and experimental styles.
Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and end white minority rule, thirteen-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings and extended family, and within her burns the desire for independence. A timeless coming-of-age tale and powerful exploration of cultural imperialism, Nervous Conditions charts Tambu’s journey to personhood in a nation that is also emerging.
“With its searing observations, devastating exploartion of the state of “not being”, wicked humour and astonishing immersion into the mind of a young woman growing up and growing old before her time, the novel is a masterpiece”
Madeleine Thien
Madeleine Thien