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) •
Tsitsi Dangarembga, born in 1959 in Mutoko, Zimbabwe, is an acclaimed novelist, playwright, and filmmaker whose work has become a cornerstone of African literature. She began her studies in medicine at Cambridge University before returning to Zimbabwe to complete a degree in psychology. While at the University of Zimbabwe, she became involved in theatre and began writing plays, later turning to fiction. Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions (1988), was the first English-language novel published by a Black Zimbabwean woman and won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Africa Region). Widely celebrated for its sharp exploration of gender, colonialism, and identity, the novel was followed by The Book of Not (2006) and This Mournable Body (2018), the latter shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020.
Alongside her literary career, Dangarembga is a trailblazer in Zimbabwean cinema. She studied film directing at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin and later founded Nyerai Films in Harare. Her feature film Everyone’s Child (1996) was the first directed by a Black Zimbabwean woman and gained international recognition. She also established the International Images Film Festival for Women and has mentored emerging African filmmakers through her cultural initiatives.
Dangarembga handed her manuscript Narini and Her Donkey to the Future Library, work which was preceded by An Untimely Love in 2003 and followed by Black and Female in 2022.
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