This Mournable Body

A Novel

By: Tsitsi Dangarembga

Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo

Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.

In This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangarembga returns to the protagonist of her acclaimed first novel, Nervous Conditions, to examine how the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation can sour over time and become a bitter and floundering struggle for survival.

As a last resort, Tambudzai takes an ecotourism job that forces her to return to her parents' impoverished homestead. It is this homecoming, in Dangarembga's tense and psychologically charged novel, that culminates in an act of betrayal, revealing just how toxic the combination of colonialism and capitalism can be.

©2018 Tsitsi Dangarembga (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Please use African readers for African stories

I’m African born and love stories from my home continent. This story is no exception. Such a pity the reader attempts an African accent but fails on pronunciation every time.
It’s so distracting from the story. I think American listeners would also prefer to hear the story in an authentic African voice from the stories own region.

Terrible narration

I’m sure the narrator is great at the job, but the accents and pronunciation were terrible. It made things much harder to follow and connect with the story and the setting. The narration of earlier books in the setting excellent.

Challenging and beautiful story.

This (and the whole Tambu trilogy) is an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to find her humanity and dignity, and trying to actualize her talents, while enduring injustice because she is a woman and African.

Narrator

I am loving this series, however this book should be read with someone who can pronounce the African words, and hearing it an American accent doesn’t work. It’s distracting …

A disappointing experience

I found it hard to relate to this book particularly as a Zimbabwean. The narrator is not Shona speaking and I could hardly understand what she was saying most of the time which left a sour taste in my mouth each time she was trying to pronounce some of the words. Her performance was stellar in all other aspects but this one. This really throws one off. Overall the plot was good with a lot of unexpected turns, considering that it's a sequel to Nervous Conditions; although the ending was a bit rushed.