Dear Doug (& hello Grace & Madeleine too!)
I finished reading your book at 1.30am last night.
I bought it at Barnes & Noble on 5th Ave near my office on Friday night, starting reading it over the weekend (as relief in between unpacking boxes in my apartment. I’m recently arrived from NZealand and though my stuff arrived in August, I’ve been putting off unpacking it all for weeks and weeks, but finally plucked up the courage with your book as a trusty companion!)
I just loved the book – you deserve a very big congrats for writing it, and most of all you do wonderful justice (so to speak) to all the people in Zim that you write about. I hope that your Mum, Dad and other family are doing ok – the last chapter you wrote about their experiences in 2008 was really scary to read and thank goodness they have been able to continue at Drifters (I’d love to go there someday!). Please send them all our love, I’m sure that they’re so very much loving your book too. I have been to Zim a few times, in better days of course (as a child before independence – I grew up in SA, and then I took my own young family there for a holiday in 97 – Lokhuthula Lodge in the South + Lake Kariba). Zim was just wonderful then -the people marvellous. I can’t believe how things have gone for the country and its people.
There are now of course many excellent books and novels from writers who have written about the Zimbabwe and life there, and of course its political history too. You join their ranks with this book. Please don’t stop writing …. there is so much to tell about Zimbabwe and its people, and you have the history and the perspective. You do them justice by writing and in better times (hopefully) your book will stand out among the very best of Zimbabwean writing. Good luck, let me know when you’re doing book signings – I’d like to get my copy signed some time. I look forward to reading your next book…
PS Good website too – the frog’s just superb!
(I think I will need to pick up and the read the Laurie Lee book some time, based on your reference to it).
With Best Wishes,
Joanne Moores