PRAISE & REVIEWS

PRAISE & REVIEWS

TWO WEEKS IN NOVEMBER

"This book is a smasher. Some of the hottest non-fiction I have ever read. The fall of Robert Mugabe was orchestrated from Jo'burg? Douglas Rogers has to be kidding. But he isn't."
- Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart

"This is Ocean's 11 meets Game of Thrones: a real-world life or death chess match for the future of
a country where the political endgame is never a foregone conclusion."
- Justin Webb, BBC Radio 4 Today Program

A clear and convincing telling of a wild tale. Rogers' honesty as a transparent author is refreshing, a reminder of Tom Wolfe’s “new journalism.”  A thrill ride! - Dalton Delan, Executive VP and Chief Programming Officer, WETA, Washington

BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week: Douglas Rogers’s incredible story of the two weeks in November 2017 when Mugabe fell from power.  Audio

Times of London: Endgame in Zimbabwe: How Robert Mugabe’s reign was ended…. For two weeks in November 2017, the world watched as Robert Mugabe clung to the presidency in Zimbabwe during a brutal power struggle. Douglas Rogers uncovers the motley group of assassins, exiles and lawyers who played a pivotal role in unseating a despot - read more 

Rian Malan muses on 'Two Weeks in November' by Douglas Rogers.
"Rogers's novel is set in the demi-monde of Zimbabwe's politics at the end of Robert Mugabe's reign. Malan considers the portents for South Africa."  Read more

 THE LAST RESORT

"This vibrant, tragic and surprisingly funny book is the best account yet of ordinary life — for blacks and whites
— under Mugabe’s dictatorship."     Sunday Book Review, NYT

"Zimbabwe in vertiginous decline is the backdrop for Douglas Rogers’s corrosively funny The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe (Harmony), in which Rogers’s parents, among the country’s last remaining white farmers, attract everyone from prostitutes and diamond dealers to their backpacker lodge."

 

- The Season's Best Memoirs, Vogue

"At first I groaned, oh no, not another memoir by a honky from Umtali, and then I read all night and loved it."

 

- Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart

 

 

"A gorgeous, open-hearted book. Rogers manages to do the vital work of taking race out of Zimbabwe's story and putting the heart and humanity back into it. A must read for anyone who really wants to understand the extraordinary decency of ordinary Zimbabweans."

 

- Alexanrda Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

 

 

 

"Authentic, disturbing, unusual, hugely funny. This is very different to other 'white boy in Africa' books. Rogers is a sharp observer and a brilliant storyteller."

 

- Max du Preez, author of Pale Native, Memories of a Renegade Reporter

 

 

"Pitch-perfect, undeniably real, and, most importantly, achingly funny, Rogers deftly reminds us that after wiping away tears and even burying the dead a good antidote to the violent, poignant and completely absurd place that Zimbabwe has become is to throw arms wide to the undaunted African sky and simply laugh."

 

- Wendy Kann, author of CASTING WITH A FRAGILE THREAD: A STORY OF SISTERS AND AFRICA

 

 

 

"With breathtaking talent, wry wit and abundant heart, Douglas Rogers tells the compulsively readable tale of his parents’ daily struggles to hold onto their land in the nightmarish landscape of present day Zimbabwe. With every turn of the page, you fear for the Rogerses survival, as well as the survival of the country they love so much. But even as they face the most difficult of challenges, their indomitable spirit shines through, revealing the ordinary heroism of people in extraordinary circumstances."

 

- Anne Landsman, author of The Rowing Lesson

 

 

 

“Travelogue, adventure yarn, political intrigue and tragedy, high-wire journalism, The Last Resort is a love story about the author and his homeland, Zimbabwe. She is by turns ineffably beautiful, unspeakably hideous, insanely rich, desperately poor, democratic, brutally autocratic, violent, corrupt and dysfunctional, even though, in person,her people seem to be one and all hard scrabble heroes and survivors. Rogers tries to leave her and doesn't even want to write about her, but in the end her charms are irresistible.

He can't help himself and neither can we.”

 

- Richard Dooling, author, White Man’s Grave

 

 

 

TRADE PRESS REVIEWS

 

 Born in Zimbabwe, New York-based travel writer Rogers moves between two worlds with wit and grace... Angst, humor, beauty and terror mingle freely in his narrative… This rousing memoir should win over anyone with a taste for exotic can’t-go-home-again stories.(Sept.)

 

– PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (Starred Review)

 

…From dollars and diamonds to pot and prostitution, Rogers shows what survival looks like when your government loses its collective mind. Brilliantly funny and wry.

 

– Colleen Mondor (Aug) – BOOKLIST

 

A Brooklyn travel writer returns to his South African homeland to rescue the family farm from imminent danger. Eye-opening memoir weaving violent Zimbabwean politics with the camaraderie and fearlessness of a family in crisis. (Aug)

 

– KIRKUS

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