Überleben

In her gripping and psychologically charged novel "Survival," peace prize winner Tsitsi Dangarembga vividly depicts the long journey to emancipation. She explores how race, gender, social class, and age impact everyday life in Zimbabwe, and how these circumstances are particularly determinative for women. Her heroine, Tambudzai, possesses everything a Black woman in Zimbabwe could wish for: education, diplomas, a job, yet she struggles to realize the life she has envisioned. She lives in a country that cannot break free from the shackles of colonialism. The new freedom excludes women. In the advertising agency, her ideas are stolen, and every step she takes is met with humiliation. She quits but finds no grounding within herself, especially not as a tour guide for German eco-tourists whom she shows around her village.

Dangarembga achieves something quite rare with her novel: a radiant anti-heroine who brings us closer to Africa, yet whose life can represent that of any woman. A widely resonant voice of Africa in contemporary literature.