When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa

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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa

by Peter Godwin (Goodreads Author)

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 3,274 ratings · 561 reviews

Hailed by reviewers as "powerful," "haunting" and "a tour de force of personal journalism," When A Crocodile Eats the Sun is the unforgettable story of one man's struggle to discover his past and come to terms with his present. Award winning author and journalist Peter Godwin writes with pathos and intimacy about Zimbabwe's spiral into chaos and, along with it, his family'...more

Paperback, 340 pages

Published April 10th 2008 by Back Bay Books (first published April 17th 2007)

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Aug 03, 2008 Spudsie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone with an interest in Zimbabwe's political landscape

This book will haunt you. It haunts me.

I was in a hotel room in Chicago trying to get ready for an early morning conference session. I was watching “Morning Joe” on MSNBC when Peter Godwin came on. I was not familiar with him, but listening to him talk about Zimbabwe intrigued me. Despite purloining 8 million vendor pens at the vendor hall the previous day, I could not quickly locate a pen and paper to write down the title of his book. Thanks goodness for technology! I grabbed my Blackberry and...more This book will haunt you. It haunts me.

I was in a hotel room in Chicago trying to get ready for an early morning conference session. I was watching “Morning Joe” on MSNBC when Peter Godwin came on. I was not familiar with him, but listening to him talk about Zimbabwe intrigued me. Despite purloining 8 million vendor pens at the vendor hall the previous day, I could not quickly locate a pen and paper to write down the title of his book. Thanks goodness for technology! I grabbed my Blackberry and sent myself an e-mail with the book title and author’s name. Once home I ordered the book and sat it on my “to read” pile for about a month.

I started reading “Crocodile” mid week. I read a few pages and had to put it down. I just didn’t have the time to keep reading. Friday afternoon I picked it up again-- and promptly cancelled my plans for the evening. I could not bear to stop reading. Peter’s story (as well as his father’s story) has so many twists and turns I almost forgot I was reading non-fiction. I felt as though he pulled me into his life.

His story made me laugh at times, say “aha!” at times, but mainly it made me weep.
Some books make me tear-up—tears form in the corners of my eyes and usually fall down my face at some point, but it’s just a tear or two.

Some books make me cry—mutiple tears falling simultaneously while my nose runs to the point I have to either put the book down and get a tissue, or (and please don’t tell anyone I do this!!) keep reading the book and use my sleeve.

Very few books make we weep—cry to the point I have no choice but to set the book aside, find a box of tissues, and weep nearly uncontrollably.

This book made we weep. Multiple times. I wept for the people of Zimbabwe and their struggles. I wept for the inhumanity of the leaders and “wovits.” I wept for the personal losses suffered by the Godwins. Sometimes I wept because I was simply overwhelmed by all of it.

Though Godwin writes this book in a fairly detached manner, it evoked a very strong emotional reaction in me. I still can’t wrap my brain around “Crocodiles” because it is living in my heart.
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May 15, 2008 Pamela rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The author, Peter Godwin, grew up as a white Zimbabwean, just like Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Lets Go to the Dogs tonight. He brilliantly shares his experience living under Robert Mugabe, who has been the country's dicator since the 1970's.

My problem, however, is how he portrays his parents, and their near-saintliness. They are/were clearly warm people with an impressive degree of moral courage.

But he never addresses the fact that Zimbabwe -- formerly Rhodesia, was a European colony bef...more

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Tim I'm not sure if "the oppression of the blacks continues to haunt the country". When I spent time there in 1989, I found it to be a surprisingly unhaun...more
Apr 30, 2012 02:56pm

Tim And maybe you preferred Fuller's book because it doesn't deal with any of this stuff, or what went before, except to relegate it to a menacing presenc...more
Apr 30, 2012 03:03pm

Makg Tim wrote: "I'm not sure if "the oppression of the blacks continues to haunt the country". When I spent time there in 1989, I found it to be a surpris...more
Feb 22, 2013 04:39am

May 16, 2008 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Godwin's "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun" is not only compelling and well-written, but more timely than ever. A memoir of his adult life after having left Zimbabwe, the place of his birth (he is a journalist for National Geographic and a slew of other top-notch publications), Godwin painfully portrays the experience of white Africans in Zimbabwe, and his own family's history in their journey to Africa. It gives an insider's view of Mugabe's reign of terror, and the utter chaos that has enveloped...more

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Aug 06, 2007 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Without revealing any of the significant components of Peter Godwin's outstanding work, I'd have to say that his subtitle, "A Memoir of Africa", is the only aspect of the book with which I take issue - it's much more than a simple memoir.

"When a Crocodile Eats the Sun" is first and foremost a must-read for anyone that feels undereducated about Africa and Mugabe's corrupt rise to power, but beyond that, I think I found Godwin's book is so interesting because he is able to mix a world that is so...more

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Jul 30, 2007 Christa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who wants to understand the current situation in Zimbabwe

My dad brought this back from SA for me, and it was funny because I'd just finished reading Mukiwa by the same author. Mukiwa is about Peter Godwin's childhood in Zimbabwe, and this book covers the death of his father there in the period from the late 90's to 2006. Peter Godwin is a journalist and it shows in how the book is written. I choose not to hold it against him.
Still, for some reason I couldn't read this book without my eyes tearing up. Seriously, I read almost the entire book trying to...more

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Apr 10, 2008 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Kelly by: The New York Times

After reading this book, I am actually unsure of where I stand on the issue of land redistribution. I recognize the value white farmers added to Zimbabwe's economy, but on the other hand I am suspicious of, you know, colonialism. As I was reading, I keep thinking, where's this guy's punchline? Has this guy really written a book completely bashing land redistribution even in the face of the fact that 70% of arable land in Zimbabwe was owned by whites who made up less than 1% of the population?

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Gaye In Peter Godwin's book he makes the reference of Zimbabwe going from 'bread bin to dust bin' which means that very little land is being used for farmi...more
Jun 16, 2012 07:29pm

Jeremy Simms One of the big problems with the land redist. in Zimbabwe is that the farms themselves were put under amnesty in 1980 - owners, mostly white but regar...more
Jul 30, 2012 04:48am

Aug 08, 2011 Neeraj Bali added it · review of another edition

When I began reading it, I was cautioned that this is a White man’s version of contemporary Zimbabwe. Even if I assume that it does suffer from that implied infirmity of bias and discount for it, the narrative is moving, heartbreaking and compelling. It rings with credibility. It is a tale the twin and parallel furrows of despair and love, of hopelessness and courage, cruelty and generosity. And yet, this is no outpouring of bitterness alone; just beneath the surface hope for humanity is visible...more When I began reading it, I was cautioned that this is a White man’s version of contemporary Zimbabwe. Even if I assume that it does suffer from that implied infirmity of bias and discount for it, the narrative is moving, heartbreaking and compelling. It rings with credibility. It is a tale the twin and parallel furrows of despair and love, of hopelessness and courage, cruelty and generosity. And yet, this is no outpouring of bitterness alone; just beneath the surface hope for humanity is visible, swimming serenely, waiting for its time to rise.....

This is a tale of the family of ex-policeman Peter Godwin as it negotiates an increasingly bleak and even cruel landscape in the country of its adoption. It is a human story that makes the contours of political and economic life in contemporary Zimbabwe rise in relief and we see a vivid picture.

Zimbabwe: the horrors of land-distribution, the sheer anarchy, the dark despotic shadow over millions of lives and the de-humanizing of a generation or more are a – for want of a better word – madness that has afflicted it, like the disease of a moment of passion. One aging man appears to have put Zimbabwe into an unstoppable tail-spin that can have but one ending. Or so one fears.

Reading it, I once again marvelled at the miracle of neighbouring South Africa and silently thanked Him for Nelson Mandela. In the post-apartheid decade, this country too could have careened onto the path of vengefulness. It too could have unleashed the pent up fount of vitriol and, in the name of ‘righting the historic wrongs’ destroyed a beautiful country. Even today, the fears of a Zimbabwe-like slide have not entirely stopped haemorrhaging; we can hope though that with the horrendous example of Zimbabwe to learn from and with the passage of each year, that ominous spectre will fade beyond retrieval.

The book is lovingly crafted, each sentence a surprising necklace, studded with imagery that shines and shines in its own lambent brilliance. Sunday Times blurb on the cover got is exactly right, “A moving meditation.....”

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Mar 25, 2013 Book Concierge rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, concierge, culture, family, library, memoir, strong-women, war

3.5***

Peter Godwin was born and raised in Rhodesia. He was away at Oxford when the war for independence was finalized and the country became Zimbabwe. He returned in 1982, working for a time as a lawyer, but settling on journalism and moving away from his homeland. His parents remained in Zimbabwe, their failing health and increased frailty mirroring the slow destruction of a once-vibrant economy into anarchy and destruction. This is Godwin’s memoir of the years from 1996, when his father had hi...more

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Dec 30, 2012 JP Schmidt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Godwin is a talented journalist/writer. His parents immigrated to Zimbabwe from Britain post-WWII. His father was an engineer and his mother became a doctor after raising he and hist 2 sisters. He presents his family as representative of the country's white liberal establishment which was able to make peace with the black majority following the civil war of the 1970s. The book lays out the disaster that Zimbabwe has become under Robert Mugabe who emerged as the leader after the war and has becom...more Godwin is a talented journalist/writer. His parents immigrated to Zimbabwe from Britain post-WWII. His father was an engineer and his mother became a doctor after raising he and hist 2 sisters. He presents his family as representative of the country's white liberal establishment which was able to make peace with the black majority following the civil war of the 1970s. The book lays out the disaster that Zimbabwe has become under Robert Mugabe who emerged as the leader after the war and has become increasingly a dictator. Though whites are 1% of the population they own 70% of the land. As Godwin presents it, most whites speak the native language, Shona, employ many hundreds of black families on their farms and provide schools and clinics. Zimbabwe was a breadbasket as a result of the agronomic know-how of the white farmers and labor of black tenants who together generated both staple foods and tobacco and other export crops. Despite the productivity of this arrangement, as opposition grew to Mugabe's increasingly dictatorial rule, Mugabe used the imbalances in wealth and colonial resentments to maintain power. Thus began the occupation of white farms by landless black war veterans spurred by Mugabe. The occupiers have threatened, harassed, and killed workers on the farms as well as whites. Moreover, occupiers are often non-veteran cronies of the regime who are not interested in farming but merely in owning land. Agricultural production has tanked, immiserating everyone by drastically raising the price of food and lowering the exchange rate.
The book is also a memoir of Godwin's family. His older sister dies in the 1970s as a result of violence associated with the civil war. She and her fiance are killed in an ambush as they are traveling a main highway. His younger sister leaves for Britain to run an opposition radio broadcast in safety. His father is revealed midway through the book to be a Polish-Jewish refuge to Britain who has buried his previous identity until the end of his life. I always find these sudden revelations of Jewish or other identities suspect. Can they really be such a surprise? Wouldn't his father have had an accent if he arrived in Britain in his late teens? How come he never had or mentioned family? Same for Madeline Albright, John Kerry, etc. Our Polish neighbor in Athens learned as an adult that her grandmother was Jewish. When I asked her if it was totally unknown to her, she said she always suspected it. Godwin's father's mother and sister were killed at Treblinka, but his father survived to die shortly after the war's end.
Godwin puts a lot of ink toward depicting racial solidarity in the opposition to Mugabe and racial harmony among middle class Zimbabweans. There is probably a lot of truth to all of this,but one feels that, despite the colonial history including creation of bantustan homelands etc. that Godwin provides, and somewhat sympathetic discussion of the anti-colonial Zimbabwean author, Dambudzo Marechera, that something is being left out of the picture. Also, as bad as things clearly are, they are much, much worse for lower class blacks which makes the sympathy that Godwin wants to draw for the embattled whites feel rather whiny. (less)

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Apr 14, 2012 Gillian Stokes added it · review of another edition

I have just finished reading "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun" and am assuaging the tears with a good glass of Johnny Black and a CD of my favourite ballet classics ....guaranteed to calm me down. There are so many reasons why I cried. I cried for times past and in fear of times to come. I cried because of the similarities. I come from a pan African family, my brothers born in Zim, me in Malawi and my sister in Zambia ( Daddy was a soldier and a traveling man) I cried when you described your fathe...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was a follow on from Mukiwa (A white boy in Africa ) which followed the creation of Zimbabwe and the end of the white ruled Rhodesia, the years of civil war and the unseen massacre in Matabeleland which the author was one of the first western journalists to try and bring this horror to the western world. Now Mugabe is in power, this is a story about a countries slide into anarchy and self destruction, while the mad man at the top sits and laughs while his people , black and white starv...more This book was a follow on from Mukiwa (A white boy in Africa ) which followed the creation of Zimbabwe and the end of the white ruled Rhodesia, the years of civil war and the unseen massacre in Matabeleland which the author was one of the first western journalists to try and bring this horror to the western world. Now Mugabe is in power, this is a story about a countries slide into anarchy and self destruction, while the mad man at the top sits and laughs while his people , black and white starve. The first thing that happens is the taking over of the white's farms by so called war vets, as a reward for fighting on the right side, but they are just bunches of thugs who have no knowledge of farming and no intent to work, the white farmers who have had the land for generations are beaten , killed to get them off the land, their machinery vandalized and sold for scrap. They are left destitiute and many leave Zimbabwe, soon nearly all the farm land is destroyed and then of course there is no food being produced, inflation is out of control, there is no law, shortages of food, medical assistance , water and electricity. Peter now living in the states returns to find his parents living in fear, and in poverty, the visit to the graveyard to visit his sisters grave was heartbreaking and every chapter you get more fearful for his parents lives and ordinary people how did they manage to survive,not just whites everybody is suffering except the top corrupt government officials!! I admire the author greatly he does not write in a self pitying way it is a matter of fact and at no time does he profess a hatred of Africa and its people,it would be so easy to become racist but obviously he sees the whole picture and how everyone is forced to make choices and all the time his love for his homeland and sorrow shine through. At the same time his father makes a confession that he has kept hidden all his life, he is actually Jewish and escaped the Holocaust but lost members of his family. Peter has this to deal with as well and it is a parallel story running throughout the book.This book is uncomfortable reading but once again is bringing the horrors to the attention of the west.(less)

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Aug 22, 2011 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a much more provocative and profound narrative than I expected. The story of Zimbabwe spiraling downward under the manic ego of Mugabe is vaguely familiar to many. But this story is a personal one, where the author, Peter Godwin, tracks the descent through the lives of his parents who are white africans in the country. They painfully lose their farm, their livelihood, their way of life (his mother a long time nurse in a hospital, and father managing the large farming enterprise), and fin...more This is a much more provocative and profound narrative than I expected. The story of Zimbabwe spiraling downward under the manic ego of Mugabe is vaguely familiar to many. But this story is a personal one, where the author, Peter Godwin, tracks the descent through the lives of his parents who are white africans in the country. They painfully lose their farm, their livelihood, their way of life (his mother a long time nurse in a hospital, and father managing the large farming enterprise), and finally health as Mugabe twists a legitimate goal of land redistribution for Zimbabweans into a spoils system unabashedly reserved for his most loyal supporters and ruling clique.

Godwin - a contract writer for National Geographic, the BBC, New York Times, and the Sunday Times (of London) - admirably maintains a professional pen and eye in spite of the subject being the virtual and to a degree literal destruction of his parents and siblings. He reflects and muses on the rule of law, the loss of ethics and dignity for all involved: the "winners" of land grabbing, as well as the losers - farm workers and those wishing to see their country prosper.

The other component of the story is the discovery that his father is actually Jewish, having escaped the Holocaust where much of his own family perished, only to find himself once again the scapegoat of a governing tyrant and an indifferent world.

It is a wide ranging book, AIDS, what institutions and infrastructure mean for a country, international aid and meddling, complete with admirable references to a number of African leaders and voices of conscience most of the West has not heard of. For example, a contemporary Zimbabwe writer, Dambudzo Marechera has savaged Mugabe's ruling clique for having betrayed the "povo" (people). He has maintained resistance as well however, against an easy "binary" framework of the colonizers and and the subjects, the oppressor and victim, or the exotic and indigenous. In fact, he questions the whole foundation of Africa's newly independent states, "based as they are on those flawed colonial territories, "nations" invented by the whites. Was independence nothing more, he asked, than a rebranding of essentially the same product?"

With this moving from personal experience to historical reflection and all the pointed connections and similarities, the reader should expect to be shaken by the injustice and savageness that has brought this once proud and promising country to the ground.(less)

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Aug 12, 2011 Gwen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed the book, in spite of a poor NY Times review. The book is written by Peter who was born in Zimbabwe but now lives with wife and 2 sons in New York City. He is a free lance author jetting to Africa to cover safari and war stories and thus makes side trips to his birth home where his parents still live. I found the stories of the state of the country in late 1990's and 2000's to be very enagaging and disturbing. I also found his memoir of taking care of his aging parents very interesting...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Sandra rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Good, but intense read. Powerful. I lived in Botswana during the time this book was written. I travelled to Zimbabwe during these times; our Zimbabwan friends were careful about how much they would say, but always we were 'safe' because we were not part of the permanent white community there - we were told that because we were not white farmers, we were safe. I also had other friends who would go untouched because of their connections to the ruling elite - even though they opposed, at least priv...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Terry rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a powerful and sad book of the history of a family wrapped in the history of Zimbabwe. The memoir came out in 2006 and details how Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa now has declining life expectancies, a terrible AIDS epidemic, has driven all white farmers off their land, and is now in the throes of famine. More than 1/2 the population of the country (dated from 1980) has fled Zimbabwe. All of this is due to the slide from democracy at the time of independence in 1980 to the terri...more

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Feb 28, 2011 Ruth Harris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: readers who like high quality books

by Ruth Harris

In this devastating memoir, journalist Peter Godwin tells the story of a family, a family secret and a dictator's malevolent destruction of a country and its citizens. Peter Godwin, who grew up in Zimbabwe and later became a writer, teacher and BBC-TV reporter, returns to Zimbabwe to visit his family home and his aging parents. There he finds that the once-prosperous country he -- and they -- love has been turned from the breadbasket of Africa into an impoverished state on the verg...more

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Aug 24, 2010 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Beautifully written memoir of Zimbabwe. More than that, it is a moving story about family and a son's care of his aging parents. The growing-old-together relationship of Godwin's parents is truly touching. Layered on that is the political reality that as Godwin's parents grow older, the Zimbabwe they know crumbles around them under Mugabe's corrupt rule.

On top of that political/familial memoir is an interesting additional layer on this story. As a child, Godwin believes his father to be a trans...more

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May 14, 2010 Lucy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

After reading this book I don't know how anyone could live in Zimbabwe. The depravation is horrid, not just for displaced whites but for blacks as well. What Mugabe did to that country is unforgivable. Having flown over, I saw for myself the ruin of the agricultural economy. Land that had been thriving farms lies fallow. Having only seen the airport in Harare, I had no idea what life was like in the capital city. Now that I do know, from reading this book, I am amazed that the city exists at all...more

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Mar 24, 2010 Dianne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I have written one review of this book, and it has disappeared into the ether. This seems to be a common occurrence with Goodreads. Doubtless someone will end up with two synopses.

I will be brief. Peter Godwin is an experienced freelance journalist, who, amongst other assignments, has worked for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. This is a vivid account of the decline of Zimbabwe under the dictatorship of Mugabe. Godwin visits Zimbabwe frequently over the 10 year period 1996 to 2006 for both profession...more

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Sep 28, 2009 Joan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I remember taking a clipping about Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence to school for current events (when I was very young :-)) and have been somewhat aware of the ongoing difficulties in Rhodesia and later Zimbabwe since then. I knew several physicians who had left the country for Canada in the early 80s for 'better' opportunities and heard the stories of how they were not optimistic that they would be able to live safely and prosper - so I was really happy to have an opportunity...more

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Aug 27, 2009 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I thought this book would be an interesting account of growing up white in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In fact, the author did that in another book. Here, after establishing a successful career as a journalist, Peter Godwin returns to Zimbabwe periodically from his home in NYC, in large part to care for his aging parents. I found this story riveting, in part because it is so current--the chaos and atrocities in Zimbabwe are ongoing--and because his struggles to deal with the increasing needs of his...more

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Aug 14, 2008 Dana Swain rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a very interesting read about the situation in Zimbabwe with Mugabe. The author is a journalist and has worked for the BBC, New Your Times Magazine and National Geographic. What makes it really good is that he is a Zimbabwean, so it chronicles not just the politics, but how it affects him and his family. A very well, written, personal account of the political, social, economic situation happening there. Very relevant for those living or that have lived in Africa.

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Feb 11, 2009 Valerie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Mark, Matt, Katharine

Recommended to Valerie by: Bookshop Santa Cruz

Shelves: africa

In the early nineties I spent some time in Zimbabwe, and I have always wanted to go back. Although there were hints of instability, mostly having to do with currency exchange, the people were well fed, well educated, and the country was beautiful. I have been looking for an explanation, a reason for the death of that Zimbabwe. The dire news of cholera and economic collapse, the continued spread of political evil...I picked this book up because it covers the late nineties and early part of this m...more

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Sep 01, 2008 Kerry rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People interested in Zimbabwe

This book is a really interesting look at Zimbabwe from an ex-pat. He is living in the U.S., but trying to care for his aging parents in Africa during tumultuous times. There are some unexpected family secrets which emerge and create a new dimension to the story. There is a lot of commentary on the course that Zimbabwe has taken during the author's lifetime that is interesting, but not fascinating. I liked it, but always hoped for a little more I suppose.

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Jul 24, 2009 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Zimbabwe during the past thirty years seems to have been a miserable place to live. Inflation caused prices of even the most basic items and services to soar. The government instituted a program where white-owned farms were taken over by black farmers, leaving the white farmers without a home and without a job. Looting was commonplace. Riots were commonplace. Medical services were overwhelmed, especially with AIDS patients. Election fraud was rampant.

Despite all these problems, Godwin’s parents...more

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May 21, 2012 Maude rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, murder, non-fiction, rebellion

The author's mother and father have lived in Zimbabwe for many decades and now sees a nation coming apart. What was once the continent's most prosperous and best-educated country has become a nightmare of poverty, brutality, corruption and death. His parents refuse to leave. His mother is a doctor and his father no longers works and is in bad health. It was after his father died when he discovered his mother's World War II medals: her father's World War I medals; and his father's Zimbabwean Poli...more

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Dec 27, 2009 Frmaselli rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(OK, I've written this review twice only to have it disappear when I hit the save button so hopefully, third time is a charm.)

Journalist and author Peter Godwin writes a moving and compelling memoir of his father who spent all his adult life in Zimbabwe. The story chronicles the heartbreaks of his father's life including a revelation that he was actually a Polish Jew who escaped the Holocaust while the rest of his family perished. Godwin writes the memoir against the backdrop of the devestation...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Shawn Davis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Zimbabwe is a mess. There's no effective way to argue that statement. But is *why* is it a mess? Can it effectively heal? What does what happened in Zimbabwe mean for the rest of Africa?

Peter Godwin was born in Rhodesia - what became Zimbabwe. His family remained in-country after Mugabe came to power, and while Godwin himself moved to America and traveled the world as a journalist, he repeatedly came back to care for his parents and witness the events overtaking his home. Along the way, he learn...more Zimbabwe is a mess. There's no effective way to argue that statement. But is *why* is it a mess? Can it effectively heal? What does what happened in Zimbabwe mean for the rest of Africa?

Peter Godwin was born in Rhodesia - what became Zimbabwe. His family remained in-country after Mugabe came to power, and while Godwin himself moved to America and traveled the world as a journalist, he repeatedly came back to care for his parents and witness the events overtaking his home. Along the way, he learns the true story of his father's background and begins to understand why his parents refuse to leave, even as the world falls down around them.

Godwin is very effective in his descriptions of what happened to white farmers and the middle class black Africans under Mugabe. It is horrifying. From the attacks of "wovits" and murders of farmers, to a haunting description of an attack and rape of a young girl attempting to cross the South African border - an attack which is an example rather than the exception, to the story of Meryl Harrison and her efforts at rescuing the animals of war, at no time does Godwin spare the details. And yet, he is never able to break away from his love and longing for Africa, and for Zimbabwe.

Godwin does not go into the pre-Mugabe history of Zimbabwe, other than a few facts needed to explain how the white settlers arrived in the country and the tribal relations present at that time. If one is looking for a complete history, this book is not the vehicle for that. It is, however, a riveting account of what Godwin witnessed. Godwin's writing is masterful, the emotions in the narrative are raw, even while he doesn't explicitly state what he was feeling. In one scene near the end of the book, you can feel the turmoil running through Godwin as he witnesses one of the street hawkers near his house collapse into an epileptic seizure. Godwin feels driven to help the man, and yet is terrified of being bitten in a country where HIV is rampant. Godwin also recognizes that the street hawker might be one of the people who has terrorized his parents in their home, stealing their car and making it impossible for his parents to leave after dark.

In the end, Godwin helps the man.

Other vignettes show both the hope and despair of living under Mugabe: his mother, bleeding profusely after a hip operation, refuses a necessary blood transfusion. When Godwin desperately asks a nurse what she would do, the nurse shakes her head and admits she would not have a transfusion for any reason.

When Godwin's father is shopping for bread and doesn't have enough money to pay for his purchases, the shopkeeper wraps them up anyway because a woman behind them in line - an African woman - has paid for him.

And Godwin's parents are first cared for by the servants they have known and supported for over twenty years, and then betrayed by them.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun isn't a beautiful story, nor is it complete. But it accomplishes what it set out to do, which is to bear witness to Zimbabwe under Mugabe. It is uncomfortable reading, not just for what it is relating, but because it makes clear how thin the line is between civilization and savagery; and how even good people can be swept up in the madness and descent -swept up into unspeakable actions.(less)

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Jun 04, 2011 Cara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this memoir, Godwin tells the story of Zimbabwe's destruction by dictatorship through his experience of trying to care for his aging parents who have spent most of their adult lives in Zimbabwe. He deftly weaves personal vignettes of booking last minute flights from the US, confronting Zimbabwean food shortages, and encountering armed and hostile war veterans, to the reasons for Zimbabwe's downfall and to the broader history of southern Africa. Though packed with historical facts, the memoir...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Favorite passages:

It's always instructive to observe the life cycle of the First World aid worker. A wary enthusiasm blooms into an almost messianic sense of what might be possible. Then, as they bump up against the local cultural limits of acceptable change, comes the inevitable disappointment, which can harden into cynicism and even racism, until they are no better than the resident whites they have initially disparaged… irrationality (p.285)

Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion...more

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About Peter Godwin

"Peter Godwin was born and raised in Africa. He studied law at Cambridge University, and international relations at Oxford. He is an award winning foreign correspondent, author, documentary-maker and screenwriter.

After practicing human rights law in Zimbabwe, he became a foreign and war correspondent, and has reported from over 60 countries, including wars in: Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe...more "Peter Godwin was born and raised in Africa. He studied law at Cambridge University, and international relations at Oxford. He is an award winning foreign correspondent, author, documentary-maker and screenwriter.

After practicing human rights law in Zimbabwe, he became a foreign and war correspondent, and has reported from over 60 countries, including wars in: Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Somalia, Congo, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir and the last years of apartheid South Africa. He served as East European correspondent and Diplomatic correspondent for the London Sunday Times, and chief correspondent for BBC television's flagship foreign affairs program, Assignment, making documentaries from such places as: Cuba, Panama, Indonesia, Pakistan, Spain, Northern Ireland, the Philippines, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltics, and the Balkans as it descended into war. His film, The Industry of Death, about the sex trade in Thailand, won the gold medal for investigative film at the New York Film Festival.

He also wrote and co-presented a three part series 'Africa Unmasked' for Britain's Channel Four. He has written for a wide array of magazines and newspapers including Vanity Fair, (for which he was a 2009 finalist for the Michael Kelly award) National Geographic, New York Times magazine and Men’s Journal.

He is the author of five non fiction books: 'Rhodesians Never Die' - The Impact of war and Political Change on White Rhodesia c.1970 - 1980 (with Ian Hancock), Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa (with photos by Chris Johns and foreword by Nelson Mandela), The Three of Us - a New Life in New York (with Joanna Coles) and Mukiwa, which received the George Orwell prize and the Esquire-Apple-Waterstones award. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun - a Memoir of Africa, won the Borders Original Voices Award, and was selected by American Libraries Association as a Notable Book winner for 2008.

He has taught writing at: the New School, Princeton and Columbia. And he is a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow."

http://petergodwin.com/about/(less)

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Books by Peter Godwin

The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe

Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa

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Trivia About When a Crocodile ...

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Quotes from When a Crocodile Eats ...

“I feel to that the gap between my new life in New York and the situation at home in Africa is stretching into a gulf, as Zimbabwe spirals downwards into a violent dictatorship. My head bulges with the effort to contain both worlds. When I am back in New York, Africa immediately seems fantastical – a wildly plumaged bird, as exotic as it is unlikely.

Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control, but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. I always have the sense there that there is no equilibrium, that everything perpetually teeters on the brink of some dramatic change, that society constantly stands poised for some spasm, some tsunami in which you can do nothing but hope to bob up to the surface and not be sucked out into a dark and hungry sea. The origin of my permanent sense of unease, my general foreboding, is probably the fact that I have lived through just such change, such a sudden and violent upending of value systems.

In my part of Africa, death is never far away. With more Zimbabweans dying in their early thirties now, mortality has a seat at every table. The urgent, tugging winds themselves seem to whisper the message, memento mori, you too shall die. In Africa, you do not view death from the auditorium of life, as a spectator, but from the edge of the stage, waiting only for your cue. You feel perishable, temporary, transient. You feel mortal.

Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in Africa. The drama of life there is amplified by its constant proximity to death. That’s what infuses it with tension. It is the essence of its tragedy too. People love harder there. Love is the way that life forgets that it is terminal. Love is life’s alibi in the face of death.

For me, the illusion of control is much easier to maintain in England or America. In this temperate world, I feel more secure, as if change will only happen incrementally, in manageable, finely calibrated, bite-sized portions. There is a sense of continuity threaded through it all: the anchor of history, the tangible presence of antiquity, of buildings, of institutions. You live in the expectation of reaching old age.

At least you used to.

But on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, those two states of mind converge. Suddenly it feels like I am back in Africa, where things can be taken away from you at random, in a single violent stroke, as quick as the whip of a snake’s head. Where tumult is raised with an abruptness that is as breathtaking as the violence itself. ” — 8 people liked it

“It's always instructive to observe the life cycle of the First World aid worker. A wary enthusiasm blooms into an almost messianic sense of what might be possible. Then, as they bump up against the local cultural limits of acceptable change, comes the inevitable disappointment, which can harden into cynicism and even racism, until they are no better than the resident whites they have initially disparaged.” — 1 person liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2538189.When_a_Crocodile_Eats_the_Sun?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344269558l/2538189.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2538189.When_a_Crocodile_Eats_the_Sun?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin[/url]

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa

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