Nervous Conditions

 ‘I was not sorry when my brother died’ is the powerful opening line to Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. This book was the first ever book published by a Zimbabwean woman. The hunt now begins for Dangarembga’s books because Nervous Conditions are so well written that I would like to read more of her work.

I too would not be sorry if my brother died and that resulted in me being afforded opportunities that I could only begrudgingly from afar. The opening line itself is so captivating that you would want to know why she was glad that their brother died. It is not foreign to us to not mourn death but to not be sorry for it, well that is malarkey. After reading the first sentence, I was drawn to understand why Tambu was not sorry for her brother’s death, why she said it so proudly and why it was the first thing I had to read.

Throughout the book, Dangarembga describes Tambu’s upbringing in a family that rarely had two cents to rub together. Her brother was given the opportunity to take his family out of poverty, yet morality failed him. Tambu, being the eldest after the deceased, then took the opportunity and thus started her education at a mission school in hopes to emancipate her family branch.

The novel is filled with excitement and pity, and fear for Tambu to be caught by the ‘Englishness’. It constantly clouds the young woman with being decent for marriage. It also tests the reader’s morals and pushes you to think about what might have been the best way to handle each situation posed in the novel.

Do find a copy and read it and maybe you could help me answer a question of my own. Was Nyasha right all along?