The history of man
By: Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2020
Place of publication: Cape Town
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
ISBN-13: 9781485904212
Copyright date: 2020
Subjects: Zimbabwean fiction (English); African fiction (English); Families; Fiction; English fiction
Description: "Emil Coetzee, a civil servant in his fifties, is washing blood off his hands when the ceasefire is announced. Like everyone else, he feels unmoored by the end of the conflict. War had given him his sense of purpose, his identity. But why has Emil's life turned out so different from his parents', who spent cheery Friday evenings flapping and flailing the Charleston or dancing the foxtrot? What happened to the Emil who used to wade through the singing elephant grass of the savannah, losing himself in it? Prize-winning novelist Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu traces Emil's life from boyhood to manhood - from his days at a privileged boarding school with the motto 'It is here that boys become the men of history', to his falling in love with the ever-elusive Marion, whose free-spirited nature has dire consequences for his heart - all the while showing how Emil becomes a man apart. Set in a southern African country that is never named, this powerful tale of human fallibility - told with empathy, generosity and a light touch - is an excursion into the interiority of the coloniser."--Back cover.