Uneasy situation

Nervous Conditions

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"We" Book Series:
See the world through us.
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Editor's Recommendation:
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❖The first novel published in English by a Zimbabwean woman, Commonwealth Writers Prize winner Tsisi Dangarumba tears apart the silence of African women in this epic poem - it is a personal struggle against the shadow of colonialism and the cage of patriarchy, and it is also a declaration of awakening for the entire gender group.
✧It was rejected by four publishing houses, with male critics saying it was a "negative story that did not fairly reflect the situation of women."
The publication of Uneasy Ground filled a void in African women’s narratives: “[In the 1980s] the Zimbabwean literary scene, much like the literary world they describe, was almost entirely male, and this was unlikely to change unless women were willing to write.”
✧ “My brother died, but I’m not sad.” This shocking confession opens the story, tearing off the tender veil of traditional narratives, breaking the Western imagination of Africa as an other, and revealing the truth about the survival of African women caught between colonialism and patriarchy from a sharp local perspective: they no longer use tears to survive, and cruelty itself is a weapon of resistance.
✧Doris Lessing: "Africa has produced many excellent works by male writers, but few by black women. This is the novel we have been waiting for. It will surely become a classic."
Alice Walker: "Uneasy Ground is that rare novel whose characters are so unforgettable... It is told in a voice that is remarkably fresh, one that is confident and at times strangely ancient. It is as if, in these perilous times, these sisters, mothers, and cousins ​​of ancient Africa are finally beginning to reassert themselves and find their voices. It is a liberation manifesto that cannot be ignored."
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❖They are appendages of their fathers and husbands in traditional society and are eager to escape poverty and bondage through education.
⊹For most of her life, my mother’s thoughts belonged first to her father, then to her husband, and never to her own.
⊹ My father said I didn't need to go to school. He said I had to learn to be a good wife. He thought what I read would fill my head with unrealistic ideas and make me useless for the real responsibilities of a woman's life.
I have absolutely no objection to marriage in principle, but the annoying thing is that it always pops up in one form or another, stretching its tentacles, tying me down, threatening to destroy my life before I even begin to think seriously about it.
⊹I hope to discover another self, a well-dressed, clean and elegant self...a self that can think about issues closely related to the salvation of the soul and the awakening of consciousness, rather than just the maintenance of the body.
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❖ Was it a ladder to escape poverty or evidence of betrayal? They allowed her to receive an education, yet also exercised tyrannical authority over her, both of which shaped their "uneasy situation."
I will take another step towards my liberation. Another step away from the flies, the stench, the fields, the rags; another step away from hunger, from filth and disease, from my father's servility to Babamukulu and my mother's chronic illness and ennui. I will also leave the Nyamarila River that I love.
⊹ “I did everything I could for you, but you disobeyed me. You are not a good child.” “If she doesn’t want to do what I say, I will stop supporting her—school, clothes, food, everything.” “It’s not a good thing for young girls to have too much contact with these white people and too much freedom. I have seen girls who do this, and they don’t grow up to be decent women.”
The psychiatrist said Nyasha couldn't be sick, saying Africans don't get the kind of illness we're describing. If you had asked me before all this started, I would have said that people who have everything they need can't possibly suffer this kind of torture.
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❖A hymn to the indomitable spirit of women and sisterhood: From the intergenerational cycle of "fall" to "escape", awakening is a survival choice that is repeatedly torn between compromise and resistance.
⊹My story is not about death at all, but about my escape and Lucia’s escape; about my mother’s fall and Meguru’s fall; about Nyasa’s resistance.
⊹Babamukulu sentenced Nyasha to prostitution, making her a victim of her womanhood, just as I felt like a victim when Namo went to school and I planted maize.
⊹ Women have been taught to see these projections as themselves, and it’s scary to even begin to realize that the very things that treat them differently as a group, as women, as a specific type of person are myths. It’s scary to acknowledge that generations of threats, attacks, and indifference have perpetuated these myths and divided the realities they face.
I'm tired of my home becoming your family's hotel. I'm tired of being their housewife. I'm tired of being a nobody in a house I work so hard to support.
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Binding design: multi-fold single cover, metaphor of color, image and structure.
✧The outer side of the cover is dominated by a highly saturated rose red. The handwritten font is primitive and rough, full of burning vitality. The hand-painted corn pattern echoes the humiliation of Tambu who planted corn to raise tuition but was plundered by his brother.
The blue river printed on the inside of the cover creates a striking contrast with the rose-red outside. Women fetch water, wash clothes, groom themselves, and play in the Nyamarila River. Receiving an education means escaping poverty and disease, but also a break from traditional ties.
✧The cover has a multi-fold design, symbolizing the dislocation, deformation and deconstruction of women’s bodies and identity cognition.
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Celebrity recommendation:
Africa has produced many excellent works by male writers, but very few by black women. This is the novel we have been waiting for. It will become a classic. - Doris Lessing, British writer and Nobel Prize winner "Uneasy Position" is a rare novel with unforgettable characters... It is told in a quite new tone, a voice that is full of confidence and sometimes seems very ancient. It is as if these sisters, mothers and cousins ​​of ancient Africa are finally beginning to re-establish themselves and find their own voices in these crisis-ridden times. This is a liberation declaration that cannot be ignored. - Alice Walker, American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner It grows as naturally as a weed. - Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer and winner of the Man Booker International Prize🏆
Awards:
Commonwealth Writers Prize for the first novel published in English by a black Zimbabwean woman
One of the BBC's "100 Books That Influenced the World"
The New York Times: "One of the masterpieces of contemporary African literature since the 20th century that cannot be ignored"
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Introduction:
Twenty years before Zimbabwe ended white colonial rule and gained independence, thirteen-year-old Tambuzai was already contemplating her own education. She bore the heavy financial expectations of her parents, relatives, and her extended family; yet, within her, a burning desire for independence burned. She longed to escape the constraints of her remote township, and her uncle, a wealthy, highly educated man from Britain, sponsored her education, which she saw as her only path.
Like many protagonists of coming-of-age novels, Tambuzai leaps from her surroundings but gradually comes to painful conclusions about her family, the condemned role of women, and the inherent evils of colonial society. She often thinks of her mother, who "endured the suffering of being female, poor, uneducated, and black with stoicism." However, her cousin Nyasha, who escaped the backwardness of society by seeking an education in England, becomes admired and yearned for. But she later discovers that she, too, has to pay the price for her education.

2025-04-01

九州出版社

Houlang, Houlang Literature

268

9787522532561