Jan 18

Jan 18 The Book of Not

Author: Tsitsi Dangarembga
Publisher: Ayebia Clarke Publishing
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

A sequel to Nervous Conditions, this is a powerful and engaging story about one young woman's quest to redefine the personal and political forces that threaten to engulf her. As its title suggests, this is also a book about denial and unfulfilled expectations and about the theft of the self that remains one of colonialism's most pernicious legacies. The novel disrupts any comfortable sense of closure to the dilemmas of colonial modernity explored in Nervous Conditions and as such is a fitting sequel.

Review

The Book of Not is the sequel to Nervous Conditions, a modern African classic. It picks up shortly after Nervous Conditions left off, with a striking opening scene from the midst of Rhodesia’s fight for independence from British colonizers. From there, we follow Tambu back to school through her graduation and just beyond, a journey in which her ambition and desire to be seen are blocked again and again by the color of her skin.

As with Nervous Conditions, the pacing and prose take concentration and patience. But I found it to be worth it — this book is a look right into the heart of the individual and systemic racism of that period of colonization. Tambu believes that achieving tangible goals is the primary driver of her worth — but she’s holding herself to unforgiving and impossible standards set and reinforced by racism, playing by the rules of a game rigged against her. No matter how well she does, she will never be recognized for it, but what can she do but keep going? What’s a schoolgirl against the forces of white supremacy and colonization? And so all she can do is keep trying, however futile. It was heartbreaking and frustrating and revelatory to witness her internalization.