Customer Reviews
A White Boy in Africa - By: C. M. Browning, 29 Oct 2008 
This is an excellent book - very interesting & instructive & a "must" for anyone wanting to know more about Zimbabwe/Rhodesia, & the background to its present problems. Well worth reading, too, is Peter Godwin's other book "When the Crocodile Eats the Sun" which explains further why Zimbabwe has so many problems & starving people at present
A sad and moving book - By: Philip Spires, 23 Sep 2007 
Peter Godwin certainly has a story to tell. It's a story of an idyllic, if unusual childhood, a disrupted but eventually immensely successful education, military service & then two careers, onein law, planned but aborted, & then onein journalism, discovered almost by default. Listed like this these elements might sound just a bit mundane, perhaps not the subject of memoir. When one adds, however, the location, Rhodesia becoming Zimbabwe, the result is a deeply moving,in places deeply sad, as well as quite disturbing account of a life lived thus far. Mukiwa, by the way, is Shona for white man.
The setting for Peter Godwin's early years was a middle class, professional and, crucially, liberal family livingin eastern Rhodesia, close to the Mozambique border. I had relativesin that same area, near Umtali & Melsetter, & they used to do exactly what the Godwins did regularly which was to visit the Indian Ocean beaches near Beira. We used to get postcards from there every year, usuallyin the middle of our north of England winter. Envy wasn't the word...
Peter Godwin's mother was a doctor & this meant that his childhood was unusualin two respects. Not many youngstersin white households had liberal-minded parents & even fewer helped their mothers conduct post mortems. Unlike most mukiwa, Peter Godwin had black friends. He learned the local language & got to know the bush. He also grew up close to death & then lived alongside it during the years of the war of independence. He describes how the war simply took over everything & labels himself as a technicianin its machinations. It's a telling phrase, admitting that he did not himself want to fight anyone. Like everyone else, he was caught upin the struggle, required to actively perpetrate the violence & that is what he did.
His education was disrupted. His family life was effectively destroyed. And how he managed to keep his sanity during the period I have no idea. He served most of the periodin Matebeleland alongside other members of the Rhodesian armed forces & police who were not, to say the least, as liberal as he was. Soin some ways he was already doubly a foreignerin that he was workingin an area where he could not speak the language & was accompanied by fellow countrymen with whom he shared no beliefs or ideals. And yet he had to fight.
I have never servedin a war & hope I never will. But my relatives from the same area as Peter Godwin were also called up into national service & also fought the war. I had not seen them for fifteen years or so when we met after they, along with many thousands of others, as recorded by Peter Godwin, had already fled south. But for them also memories of war were deep & resented scars. It was a bloody & dirty war where, if you were lucky, you could at most trust your closest colleagues. It was a vicious conflict at times & left everyone angry. No-one won. Everyone suffered.
Having eventually achieved the education he sought, Peter Godwin attempted to launch a legal career. But then, almost by default, he became a reporter. After independence, he learned of atrocities perpetrated by the Zambabwean armyin the area where he had served during the war. He investigated. He reported. And then, on advice, he fled.
But he did eventually return to all of the areas he knew & the last part of the book is a moving & deeply sad account of how little he recognisedin the places he loved as a child. But within this, there is a moment of hope as he meets a former freedom fighter and, with humour & new friendship, the two of them realise that they had not only been enemies, but had actually been two commanders trying to kill one another on opposite sides of the same skirmish.
Butin the end, Peter Godwin is changed man, & his home & homeland, at least as he had experienced them, were no more. War had changed everything & everyone. No-one won.
You should read these TWO books! - By: Geoffrey Woollard, 30 Mar 2007 Peter Godwin has written much, but "Mukiwa: A White Boy In Africa" & its follow-up, "When A Crocodile Eats The Sun," must surely be the volumes of which he is most proud. For anyone with even a passing interestin Africa and/or the present problemsin Zimbabwe/Rhodesia, they are 'must-reads,' preferablyin chronological order - Mukiwa (1996 & later paperbacks) first, & then Crocodile (2005 & 2007).
I confess straight away that my own knowledge of Africa is limited, but I have interested myselfin the continent's affairs for as long as I can remember & I also nurtured enormous sympathy for Rhodesia, for its people, & for former Prime Minister Ian Smith.
Peter Godwin has little apparent sympathy for Smith and, for that & other reasons that are clearin his books, he can be looked upon as a liberal. Therefore, his two books are all the more potent for their description of 'the reversal of progress, the shocking decline, the descent into darkness' (Crocodile 2007, page 314) under the tyrannical & murderous regime of Robert Mugabe. These beautifully & movingly written but appallingly tragic books, based on first-hand experience & knowledge & Godwin's own family's declining circumstances, should be compulsory study for all liberals.
I was born before the Second World War. Therefore, I was around when Hitler's 'Third Reich' was crushed. I always hoped, but I never thought I would live long enough to see the collapse of Communismin 1989. I still hope that I live long enough to see Mugabe go & for the name of Ian Smith to be honoured againin Rhodesia!
In Memoriam: Ian Douglas Smith, died 20th November, 2007. Greatly missed.
Splendid - By: T. Williams, 16 Mar 2007 This is a triumph. Godwin's account of the beginnings of Rhodesia's move towards independence & its fruition is 1980 is a beautifully crafted, honest & at times terrifying read. I have neverin my life finished a book & immediately turned back to page 1 & started all over again (although I did force myself to stop at page 18 when I realised what I was doing). Peter Godwin invites us to share the love he has for his family, friends & a country struggling to free itself from its colonial past. From childhood to adulthood Mukiwa charts the drastic changes of a country & its effect on the Godwin's. The companion piece, When A Crocodile Eats the Sun is even more profound. A work that lets us know more of the tragic situationin Zim. I wept.
A wonderful encaptivating insight to open your eyes - By: , 12 Sep 2000 A fantastic book for everybody. It gave me an interresting insight into the colourful politics of the rhodesian war. Peter Godwin's experiences will change your views & open your mind. This charming story of his change from boy to man also dipicts a beutiful country that has since been shadowed.
