Winner of the Noma Award. Bones is the poetic and evocative novel by Chenjerai Hove, offering an intimate view into the Zimbabwe War of Liberation and the minds of those who were left behind. To Marita, an illiterate labourer on a commercial farm, the promise of independence for Rhodesia means very little. Poverty persists and her white boss continues the brutal treatment of his workers. Yet, for her son, it is a matter of life and death. Told through the voices of the people whose lives she touched, we witness Marita's devastation at her son's choice to run away and fight for liberation – and her determination to discover what happened to him. Written in a blend of poetic prose and oral tradition, Bones is rich with Shona idioms and dares to ask how a nation can be free when its oppressors refuse to leave. 'Chenjerai Hove's figure looms large in Zimbabwe's literary pantheon.' Guardian 'A harrowing tale.' New York Times

A collection of evocative and defiant poetry from one of Zimbabwe's leading literary and political writers. The poems reflect on the plight of the individual citizen and the state of Zimbabwe, the poet's birthplace and spiritual home. They convey empathy for those who suffer anonymous deaths at the expense of tyrannical power, and yearning for a more peaceful world and spirit of common destiny; their intention being in his words' to persuade the heart and the soul and human body to be together and to gently cry out to the world'.

The essays appeared in the author's weekly column in The Zimbabwe standard.

"A native's intimate -- occasionally painful -- look at his own land... His observations about women and their place in Zimbabwean society are particularly incisive". -- Publishers Weekly In Shebeen Tales, Zimbabwe's leading author offers a view of his country not from the perspective of the foreign correspondent or well-heeled visitor, but that of the ordinary person who, with the help of dry wit and illegal beer, pokes fun at the rich and mighty. Chenjerai Hove looks straight into the eye of a society suffering from draught, economic hardship and AIDS, but does not succumb to despair. With a wry sense of humor, his writer's pen celebrates a people who continue to live life to the full, to laugh and sing, to tell tall tales -- whatever is thrown at them. Shebeen Tales is a series of literary snapshots that takes us into the very heart of modern Africa.