The place is white-ruled Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) of the 1970s, the exile the African in his or her own land. Young men and women flee from their towns and villages to join the freedom fighters in the forests.

These stories, set during the years of the armed struggle, tell of the other struggle, that of the survival and anxiety of those who stayed behind. Told essentially from the women's point of view, in lyrical but unaffected prose, the stories recreate the dark atmosphere of those months full of fear and hope.

This new edition is introduced by MG Vassanji.

Yvonne Vera's profile page

Yvonne Vera (1964-2005) was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and later attended York University in Toronto, gaining her doctorate in English Literature in 1995. Her fiction has won a number of international awards, including the Tucholsky Prize from Swedish PEN (2004) and the Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa (2002). Her novel Nehanda was short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize (Africa, 1995), which she won two years later for Under the Tongue (1997).

"A subtle writer ... [Why Don't You Carve Other Animals] radiates the same commitment as The Grass Is Singing, Doris Lessing's first novel, which forty years ago also reported unbridgeable boundaries in Southern Africa." -Toronto Review