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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa Paperback – Illustrated, April 10, 2008

by Peter Godwin (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,400 ratings
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After his father's heart attack in 1984, Peter Godwin began a series of pilgrimages back to Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, from Manhattan, where he now lives. On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downwards into the jaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years.

Then Godwin discovered a shocking family secret that helped explain their loyalty. Africa was his father's sanctuary from another identity, another world.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.
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  1. Print length
    341 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Back Bay Books
  4. Publication date
    April 10, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0316018716
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0316018715
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peter Godwin is the award-winning author of When a Crocodile Eats the Sun and Mukiwa. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, he was educated at Cambridge and Oxford and became a foreign correspondent, reporting from more than 60 countries. Since moving to Manhattan, he has written for National Geographic, the New York Times Magazine, and Vanity Fair. He has taught at Princeton and Columbia and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2010.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (April 10, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 341 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316018716
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316018715
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,400 ratings

About the author

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Peter Godwin

Peter Godwin

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Peter Godwin is the award winning author of The Fear, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, and Mukiwa, all published by Picador. He writes for various publications including the New York Times magazine, National Geographic and Vanity Fair. He lives in Manhattan.

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4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
1,400 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Andrew Desmond
5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, Compelling, Magnificent
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2012
Verified Purchase
"When a Crocodile Eats the Sun" is a magnificent memoir. It is, in my mind, the best book I have read for some years. At varying times, it can be tragic, uplifting, sad and captivating. I simply devoured it over a handful of days.

Peter Godwin was born in Rhodesia, a country to which his parents emigrated after the Second World War. His mother was a doctor and his father an engineer. They were seeking a fresh start in Africa. Their hopes would have been boundless.

Godwin's memoir covers the period from 1996 until 2004. It is a period in which his father's health is progressively declining and ultimately leads to his death. This decline is a metaphor for the tragedy that is modern Zimbabwe. From having been part of the nation's educated elite, Godwin's family is slowly reduced to penury. The nation is ruled by an authoritarian kleptocrat, Robert Mugabe. Single handedly, this man has run Zimbabwe down from a relatively prosperous nation with good prospects to being a beggar. One can only hope that history treats this man with the contempt that is his due.

Godwin tells the story of the nation's decline through the eyes of a foreigner who now only visits the country periodically. He has moved to New York where he is a writer. On each trip home he sees a nation one step closer to anarchy. This in itself is a sad tale but when seen against the backdrop of his own father's failing health, the tale is especially tragic.

Intertwined with the larger picture is a slowly revealing portrait of his father's background which had been kept secret from his children. This too is a sad story. Some people are truly dogged by the misfortunes of when and where they were born. This is certainly true for Godwin senior.

I will say no more. Arguably, I have revealed too much already. However, I do thoroughly recommend this book. It is a masterpiece of compelling literature.
15 people found this helpful
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Tony Edwards
4.0 out of 5 stars A tough but first class read
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2016
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I’m not sure how to rate this book. It appeared to me at once a biographical about the depressing early years of an independent Zimbabwe; on the other hand, it devolved into a most personal autobiography. I am torn.
I lived in Rhodesia from 1962 through 1969 with a year in Zambia sandwiched in between. I was not raised in Rhodesia but did spend nearly six of my formative years in Tanganyika. Before moving to Rhodesia as a young man I did a six months’ stint in Blantyre, Malawi, staying at Ryalls Hotel (not Riley’s as misprinted,) and have mixed feelings.
From a literary perspective, Godwin’s writing style is creative, exotic and stimulating although the ‘stimulating’ part, which tends negative, was a bit much for me having lived in the country in happier times. Coming events however, were indeed casting their shadows before them in the 60s. So, I harbor little doubt that the impression he leaves is accurate. I made a flying visit to Harare, (Salisbury) in 1985 and saw the downhill trend with my own eyes. A former Shona servant of mine whom I contacted bemoaned the terrible situation and avowed how much better life had been under white rule. And Mugabe was just getting started.
If you knew Rhodesia, reading this book will leave you impressed and distressed. If you didn’t, you may regard the story with a more objective eye although it’s hard to believe anyone could be objective about this international disgrace.
Well worth the read if you can handle it.
 The Slope of Kongwa Hill: A Boy's Tale of Africa
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L. Keto
5.0 out of 5 stars The Why Behind the Tragedy of Zimbabwe
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2007
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For anyone following events in Africa, what has happened in Zimbabwe has been tragically clear. In the span of less than ten years, President Robert Mugabe has turned this breadbasket of farm exports into an African basket case.

In Peter Godwin's "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa," the reader finds out why. Seeking to amend the constitution in 2000 so that he can remain in power, Mugabe suffers a surprising electoral defeat in a referendum. Enraged, Mugabe declares war on his own people. As Mugabe and his loyalists in his ZANU-PF party ransack the country, the man distracts international attention by targeting the white farmers by seizing their property under a spurious land reform program.

Godwin charts the collapse of the country's economy and morality as he finds it more and more difficult to provide care for his ailing father amidst the crisis. Although his father initially recovers, his health begins to deteriorate rapidly in 2000 just as Mugabe makes his move. For the reader, the health of Godwin's father becomes as extended metaphor for the suffering of the country.

However, the metaphor deepens when Godwin learns his father is not really English and instead is a refugee from another, even more tragic historical persecution. With this new information, Godwin questions whether he or any other white can possibly live in Zimbabwe in particular or Africa in general as long as the continent's leaders find it politically expedient to indulge in race-baiting and persecution.

The book is a poignant look at a country being crushed by a man Archbishop Desmond Tutu called "the very caricature of an African tyrant." A must read for any one trying to understand Africa and its limitations today.

As he was in his previous memoir, "Mukiwa" which is about growing up in Rhodesia, Godwin is a master craftsman when it comes to writing.
14 people found this helpful
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carolee von shillagh
5.0 out of 5 stars understanding Zimbabwe
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2023
Verified Purchase
This was suggested reading by my guide in Africa, and I am so glad . It’s a grizzly and important story which shows how ugly greed can really be. Parallels to the holocaust are frightening but this is so beautifully written. I will wonder how the mother’s story ends for a long, long time.
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Top reviews from other countries

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MR R RYLATT
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book
Reviewed in Spain on January 1, 2023
Verified Purchase
Beautifully written - a must-read for anyone who knows anything about Zimbabwe - or anyone who doesn't. Parts are very shocking - but that's Africa.
Peter Godwin's earlier book 'Mukiba'or Á White Boy in Africa'about his youth in Rhodesia, as it was then, is also well worth reading.
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Andria
5.0 out of 5 stars Lest we forget
Reviewed in Australia on January 10, 2024
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This book documents what so many of us have been unable to talk about. I am grateful and in deep admiration of the Godwin family’s courage.
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Tahnna
3.0 out of 5 stars An autobiography mixed with the History of Rwanda
Reviewed in France on April 24, 2018
Verified Purchase
The title refers to the local mythology about the eclipse of the sun. They say "the crocidile eats the sun".
This is an autobiographical novel with a family secret, which is not the center of the book.
The story takes place in Zimbabwe, and the moment of the independance. The narrator's parents live there. The aothor is an American journalist.
So he relates the History of the independance of Zimbwawe, with the depossession of the white farmers, or their murder.
It is at the same an historical book and the story of the family of the author.
it is interesting, but some details are too numerous. It is a bit too long and boring for this reason.
That's why I put only three stars to note it
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Lidia25
5.0 out of 5 stars an extraordinary novel/essay
Reviewed in Italy on August 26, 2016
Verified Purchase
An exceptional portrait of Zimbabwe's decline through the eyes of a white Zimbabwean family. I liked everything in the book: the story of Goodwin's family (decidedly worth of a novel!), the fine analysis of Zimbabwe's political scenario, the description of everyday life in two parallel realities - Zimbabwe and the USA - that seem to constantly clash against each other in the writer's heart and life. I loved the bMoreover, it opendedook from the first pages, and when I closed it I would have liked to have the writer's phone number in order to ask him, again and again, to tell me even more details of his family's life in Africa. Moreover, it opened my eyes on many tragedies in Zimbabwe's history that I had no clue about.
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Dr. Edward R. Swart
5.0 out of 5 stars A truly remarkable book
Reviewed in Canada on May 19, 2007
Verified Purchase
It was said of George Fox (the founder of Quakerism) that he was 'no man's copy' and the very same can be said of Peter Godwin's book 'When a Crocodile eats the Sun'. It is no other book's copy.

For anyone who does not know the true history of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe over the last 30 years there can be no other book which provides a better insight into how Zimbabwe has been converted from a viable and flourishing country into a 'needless moral and physical debasement ' of its former self.

When it comes to providing unvarnished details of what has actually happened in Zimbabwe ' without any embellishment or prevarication ' there can be no better source of information. The truth is that as far as destroying the very soul of a country is concerned Mugabe is in the company of the very worst demagogues in the history of mankind. As Godwin rightly says about his fellow countrymen (both black and white) 'they have made scavengers of all of us . . . Reducing us all to desperados and thieves'. Three simple statistic captures the extent to which Mugabe and his cronies have devastated the citizenry of the country they rule. When Mugabe came to power the life expectancy in Rhodesia was 65 but, in today's Zimbabwe, it has sunk to 33. The unemployment rate has now reached a staggering 80%. The annual rate of inflation is now over 3,000%. And all of this without any good reason whatsoever.

Godwin's book is somewhat unusual in that it is really three stories rolled into one. Firstly the details of how his own family has been adversely affected by Mugabe's misrule. Secondly the manner in which he learnt of his father's Jewish antecedents. And thirdly a remarkable set of first hand experiences of how agricultural production in Zimbabwe has been effectively destroyed and individual farmers and their families have been degraded and all too often killed.

Godwin is a superb craftsman and researcher. Once he learnt that his aunt (his father's sister) and grandmother had been exterminated in Treblinka by the Nazis he he took the trouble to find out exactly what happened in Treblinka. His measured description is nothing other than bone chilling and ought to be obligatory reading for all holocaust deniers such such as Iran's Ahamadinajad.

All in all, this is a book which is bound to reward anyone who gives themselves the pleasure of reading it. The remarkable honesty and openness of Godwin's account is a rare treat unfortunately about a most depressing subject ameliorated only by the examples of human compassion that shine through the sombreness of the story as a whole. Godwin's book is clearly badly in need of being read by as many people as possible since the UN has bizarrely chosen to install a Zimbabwean as head of its Commission on Sustainable Development. What a mockery of all the malfeasance which Godwin so ably describes.
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