This was a book club selection. The novel is about a young girl in 1960s Rodesia/Zimbabwe struggling to lift herself out of poverty and subsistence living by seeking an education. While this starts out like so many other "impoverished-girl-seeks-education" novels do, it is important to remember this was published in 1988, so it's really the template for those other novels that followed. It is also a bit deeper than some in that it goes beyond the tale of one girl to explore themes like the toxicity of extreme patriarchal cultures and the damaging psychological effects of colonization.

The characters were interesting, varied, and well-drawn. I did not care for the ending. It seemed rushed and went somewhere I wasn't expecting The story had not ben built up in a way that prepared the reader to accept the conclusion. This is part 1 of a trilogy the author penned over 3 decades. I may read the others. ( )

I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling.

Thus begins this coming of age novel of Tambu, a young Zimbabwean girl straddling the divides between men and women, white and black, uneducated and educated, rural and urban, European and African. From the first sentences, Tambu is presented as a strong person relating her story to an other that may not understand her. She makes no excuses and, although she is sharing her experiences, she does not feel a need to justify herself or her decisions. Her voice is quite unique.

Even as children, Tambu's older brother had assumed the role of a traditional, conservative male, feeling an innate superiority to his female siblings. This arrogance was reinforced when their Western-educated uncle chooses him to be educated at the missionary school where he is the headmaster. Tambu chafes at her brother's good fortune, for she is equally intelligent and ambitious. It is only after her brother dies, that her uncle takes her in to be educated.

Life in her uncle's house is revelatory. Indoor plumbing, kitchen appliances, and other accoutrements of a wealthy, Western-influenced home impress Tambu. She doesn't at first understand that her well-educated aunt is as entrapped by her womanhood as her poverty-stricken mother, or the reasons for her cousin Nyasha's rebellion. Slowly Tambu must grapple with the grey choices of escape from poverty by assimilating or remaining true to her village roots at the cost of her ambitions.

[Nervous Conditions] is the first in a trilogy of novels about Tambu. Although this first novel deals with issues of feminism and colonialism, it comes to no conclusions. In fact, that is part of what Tambu learns in this book: that the world is not clear-cut and that ambiguity clouds our choices. Although not as strongly written as [A Girl is a Body of Water] or [Woman at Point Zero], I enjoyed being immersed in Tambu's world and will look for the next book in the trilogy. ( )

Yes. ( )

The tensions arising between traditional ways of life and opportunities that European interventions offer to native Africans willing to accept them reside at the heart of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s incisive and poignant novel, Nervous Conditions. In 1960s Rhodesia (soon to become independent Zimbabwe), Tambudzai (Tambu) Sigauke lives with her parents and siblings on the family homestead, in a rural village 20 miles from the town of Umtali. The homestead is squalid and life is hard, facts she can accept because it is all she knows. But Tambu is smart. Limited time at the local school has demonstrated that she possesses a quick and searching intelligence. She yearns to expand her horizons. What’s holding her back (other than her family’s poverty) is her gender. As a girl, her route through life is set in stone: inevitably she’ll become someone’s wife and have children. But opportunity for a different kind of life does exist: her brother Nhamo is attending the residential mission school in Umtali, where his fees are being covered by their well-off British-educated uncle Babamukuru. The family expects that once Nhamo’s education is complete, he will find gainful employment and provide them with economic security. Back on the homestead Tambu is consumed with envy. Taken out of school to help on the farm because of Nhamo’s absence, she has no choice but to accept her fate. But when Nhamo dies suddenly, the tragedy forces a decision on the grieving Sigauke family, and despite her mother’s objections Tambu takes her brother’s place at the mission school. Tambu, who cannot afford to be sentimental, can hardly believe her luck. Over the next two years, in an atmosphere where the pursuit of excellence is encouraged, she rises to the top of her class, exceeding her own and her uncle’s expectations. But Tambu discovers that success in the English-speaking white man’s world does not come without a cost. As her academic triumphs push her further and further from her family, her language, and the world she came from, she’s left feeling that she’s betrayed everyone and wondering what she’s gotten herself into. Dangarembga’s semi-autobiographical fiction, first published in 1988, has been followed by two sequels, The Book of Not (2006), and This Mournable Body (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020) which bring Tambu’s story into the present day. Tambu Sigauke, an exceptionally self-aware protagonist, knows her own mind and is unapologetic when it comes to pursuing her hopes and dreams. But by the novel’s end she is deeply conflicted, immersed in a goal-oriented European lifestyle, culturally unmoored, ashamed of her humble origins and suffering guilt because of this shame. Despite her successes she is blindsided when the realization hits her that, as a black African living in the white man’s world, she has no idea where she belongs. Written with candour and wrenching honesty, Nervous Conditions provides a powerful commentary on colonialism’s painful legacy from an insider’s perspective and leaves an indelible impression on the reader. ( )

Imagine a society where the only way a woman will be able to get an education is if her older brother, who was going to school himself, died, and since she’s the oldest of the family, now she has to go to school in his place.

For author Tsitsi Dangarembga, this wasn’t too far from the truth. In fact, she wrote a semi-autographical novel about it, called Nervous Conditions, about the plight of girls who want an education living in Zimbabwe (or what was then called Rhodesia). The novel follows Tambu, who’s older brother dies of ‘becoming Anglicized’, but in an effort to have at least one member of the family educated at the Catholic school their uncle manages, Tambu is sent to school to take over her brother’s position as eldest of the family. She does this knowing her mother hates it, knowing her father wants her to do it, and knowing that she will never be as close as she used to be to her culture.

The main characters of the novel, Tambu and her cousin Nyasha, have an incredibly dynamic relationship, being incredibly different but able to support each other positively whenever the other needs. Unfortunately, Nyasha does not fare well, becoming, towards the end, a product of the pressure to be perfect, and a part of a society she wants nothing to do with. While a smart girl, Nyasha is a victim of the extreme patriarchy of her father’s reign at the school, and a black woman in a colonized society that views them as nothing more than the natives of the land.

Tambu, on the other hand, excels, meeting her own obstacles of self-identity, both as a girl who spent the majority of her life up to now living in a homestead learning to become the perfect wife, and as a black woman being educated in a white man’s colony. She triumphs over her obstacles, but one can only assume how much she had to pay for that to be said in the first place.

Nervous Conditions is a brilliant novel, written by an author who knows the struggle, and presented to a society who will never understand the difficulty of acquiring an education. My honest recommendation is 4/5; everyone should read this book, especially those interested in history.

Luckily for you, if you’re an English student at the University of Malta, the chances are you’ll have to read this in your second year! ( )