Tsitsi Dangarembga

A Study Guide

Nervous Conditions

A Novel

sage lynn

“I was meeting, outside myself, many things that I had thought about ambiguously; things that I had always known existed in other worlds although the knowledge was vague; things that had made my mother wonder whether I was quite myself, or whether I was carrying some other presence in me.”

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THIS MOURNABLE BODY, ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 WOMEN FOR 2020 'UNFORGETTABLE' Alice Walker 'THIS IS THE BOOK WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR' Doris Lessing 'A UNIQUE AND VALUABLE BOOK.' Booklist 'AN ABSORBING PAGE-TURNER' Bloomsbury Review 'A MASTERPIECE' Madeleine Thien 'ARRESTING' Kwame Anthony Appiah Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended 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 a powerful exploration of cultural imperialism, Nervous Conditions charts Tambu's journey to personhood in a fledgling nation. 'With its searing observations, devastating exploration 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.' Madelein Thien

This is one of this books that you just really feel. Read it. Nothing else to say.

Willow Beller

A slow read and a repetitive story but the characters were enjoyable, especially Nyasha and her complicated relationship with food and her father. Still, I would be keen to read the sequel - for further context.

Nana O

"Nervous Conditions brings to the politics of decolonization theory the energy of women's rights. By now a classic in African literature and Black women's literature internationally, Nervous Conditions is a must for anyone wanting to understand voice, memory, and coming of age for young Black women in Africa." -- back cover.

Lindy

"What was needed in that kitchen was combination of Maiguru's detachment and Lucia's direction. Everybody needed to broaden out a little, to stop and consider the alternatives, but the matter was too intimate. It stung too saltily, too sharply and agonisingly the sensitive images that the women had of themselves, images that were really no more than reflections. But the women had been taught to recognise these reflections as self and it was frightening now to even begin to think that, the very facts which set them apart as a group, as women, as a certain kind of person, were only myths; frightening to acknowledge that generations of threat and assault and neglect had battered these myths into the extreme, dividing the reality they faced, of the Maigurus or the Lucias. So instead of a broadening from both positions, instead of and encompassing and a growth, the fear made it necessary to tighten up. Each retreated more resolutely into their roles, pretending while they did that actually they were advancing, had in fact initiated an offensive, when really, for each one of them, it was a last solitary, hopeless defence of the security of their illusions." 
-- p. 140

Prashanth Srivatsa

A more complex and doubly thought-provoking portrayal of womanhood , family and education than the wildly successful Educated. Tambudzai's journey, beginning with her clarification that she is not callous about her brother's death, is both poignant and gives a wonderful insight into women (and men) in Zimbabwe.

Shona Tiger

** spoiler alert **
           After a few false starts, got through it in a few days. Intriguingly complex book. The end felt a little rushed, but I think the pace works, in the end. Quite enjoyed how the subject matter is treated delicately, and the empathetic treatment of the characters (except for Babamukuru, who - fittingly - comes to resemble an ogre by the middle of the book). 

Gave me quite a bit to think about. And how proud I am that this book is from home. Oh, and one of the best opening lines ever.

this was our book club pick for the month under the topic "southern african literature".

i suspect that even if it had not been historically significant as the first book written by a black zimbabwean woman in english, 'nervous conditions' would have still had a special place in both the world and southern african literature. through the eyes of tambu, dangarembga tackles topics of (post-)colonialism, patriarchy and adolescence in a very clear, very sincere way - which somewhat reminded me of the literary novels that were part of my curriculum. this novel is (nearly?) an artefact of a historical time and a place and a culture.

it was all-around very fascinating for me to read. i am shamefully unfamiliar with zimambwean culture and the book goes a long way to describe a key transitional period of the country's history without being condescending to or coddling the reader. in the interview that came as part of my copy, dangarembga mentions that she wanted to give a chance to zimbabwean women to see themselves in her book and this desire is palpable.

the novel encompasses the experiences of a number of women and this was perhaps my favourite element from it. besides tambu herself, nyasha had my other favourite narrative in the novel. both girls' stories are such vivid representations of female adolescence, they truly struck a chord with me. dangarembga has a great ability as a storyteller and in provoking empathy for her characters.

this was our book club pick for the month under the topic "southern african literature".

i suspect that even if it had not been historically significant as the first book written by a black zimbabwean woman in english, 'nervous conditions' would have still had a special place in both the world and southern african literature. through the eyes of tambu, dangarembga tackles topics of (post-)colonialism, patriarchy and adolescence in a very clear, very sincere way - which somewhat reminded me of the literary novels that were part of my curriculum. this novel is (nearly?) an artefact of a historical time and a place and a culture.

it was all-around very fascinating for me to read. i am shamefully unfamiliar with zimambwean culture and the book goes a long way to describe a key transitional period of the country's history without being condescending to or coddling the reader. in the interview that came as part of my copy, dangarembga mentions that she wanted to give a chance to zimbabwean women to see themselves in her book and this desire is palpable.

the novel encompasses the experiences of a number of women and this was perhaps my favourite element from it. besides tambu herself, nyasha had my other favourite narrative in the novel. both girls' stories are such vivid representations of female adolescence, they truly struck a chord with me. dangarembga has a great ability as a storyteller and in provoking empathy for her characters.

Fraser Simons

Coming-of-age + feminism intersections in Zimbabwe, pretty much means I was destined to really like this, and I liked it more than I expected. A pleasant surprise was my getting along very well with both the narration on the audiobook as well as finding the authorial voice for the character having a lot of personality in the prose work, which can really flatten out in this format. 

It is fairly challenging, but in the ways you expect. And it has the device in which an older, erudite version of the narrator is telling the story, so the reading isn’t stuck with a childish and simple voice. I really like that; it’s almost a requirement for me these days in coming-of-age. The protagonist is whipped and harmed in other ways during her struggle to find some measure of autonomy, primarily through education. The characters are well realized; the plot, probably predictable but executed well. It falls into the solid bit of writing camp, for me.

Tanja Hoffmann

3.5
It took me a long time to read this, probably because the chapters are quite long, and halfway through I got pretty bored. But the final chapter really made up for it and rounds out skillfully many of the points made in the book. 

The most interesting bits in my eyes were whenever Tambu reflected on the missionaries and their impact, and when her cousin talked about her relationship with her parents. I do think the author has a tendency to spell everything out for you, so that the colonial or patriarchal influence on a scene is specifically stated. It fits in line with the main character's thought patterns, so it makes narrative sense, I just don't think it always makes for the best reading experience. I enjoyed the fact that the author didn't always explain things for non-Zimbabwean readers, that you sometimes had to guess (or look up) the meaning of Shona words, I think it let the story flow more naturally, while simultaneously subtly making a statement about native languages in colonized countries and literature in general.
Sometimes the writing felt a bit stiff, but I’m not sure if this was intentional to reflect the main character's age, or is just the general writing style of the author. I will have to read the other books in the series, where Tambu is older, to see. 

All in all, I think this book is an important postcolonial and feminist text, not without its flaws, but definitely worth reading.

This is a book that gets 5 stars despite the fact that I personally didn't enjoy every moment of reading it.

The themes that Dangarembga covers are so important, and she really depicts them in a way that only someone who has known what it is like to be a woman in a patriarchal society can. It's really a story of how women have to adapt to their situations and try to define their own roles, and how that either becomes a success or fails.

I'm really not doing it justice, I don't even think that I can. It's definitely worth a read. Go read it! It isn't happy go lucky, it isn't always the most interesting, but it has such a sociological perspective that it just says so much in its 200some pages.

Guin Hartinger

While the story Dangarembga presents is compelling and interesting, the prose lacks interesting style. Many sentences have an interrupted clauses, a 'stylistic' tendency that seems uncreative. It is also annoying that this novel refers to future transformations of character that the reader will never see in the last paragraph. This comes off as lazy rather than artistic, hinting at a far more interesting story that the reader will never experience. While this work is stylistically sterile, the narrative is valuable for understanding post-colonial experiences of identity. Dangarembga's characters are hardly ever two-dimensional, even if the reader comes to despise them. An important work, but if you are not desperately interested in the immediate subject matter it may be tedious.

giuli

Nova <3

Andrea Hak-Kovacs

Anya Nyman

A modern classic from the Booker-shortlisted author of This Mournable Body The groundbreaking first novel in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s award-winning trilogy, Nervous Conditions, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and has been “hailed as one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature” (The New York Times). Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended 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. She yearns to be free of the constraints of her rural village and thinks she’s found her way out when her wealthy uncle offers to sponsor her schooling. But she soon learns that the education she receives at his mission school comes with a price.

Nervous Conditions A Study Guide

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