The Stone Virgins: A Novel

Winner of the Macmillan Prize for African Adult Fiction An uncompromising novel by one of Africa's premiere writers, detailing the horrors of civil war in luminous, haunting prose In 1980, after decades of guerilla war against colonial rule, Rhodesia earned its hard-fought-for independence from Britain. Less than two years thereafter when Mugabe rose to power in the new Zimbabwe, it signaled the begining of brutal civil unrest that would last nearly a half decade more. With The Stone Virgins Yvonne Vera examines the dissident movement from the perspective of two sisters living in a small township outside of Bulawayo. In a portrait painted in successive impressions of life before and after the liberation, Vera explores the quest for dignity and a centered existence against a backdrop of unimaginable violence; the twin instincts of survival and love; the rival pulls of township and city life; and mankind's capacity for terror, beauty, and sacrifice. One sister will find a reason for hope. One will not make it through alive. Weaving historical fact within a story of grand passions and striking endurance, Vera has gifted us with a powerful and provocative testament to the resilience of the Zimbabwean people.

Literature & Fiction

Vera, Yvonne

Literary

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Butterfly Burning brings the brilliantly poetic voice of Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera to American readers for the first time. Set in Makokoba, a black township, in the late l940s, the novel is an intensely bittersweet love story. When Fumbatha, a construction worker, meets the much younger Phephelaphi, he"wants her like the land beneath his feet from which birth had severed him." He in turn fills her "with hope larger than memory." But Phephelaphi is not satisfied with their "one-room" love alone. The qualities that drew Fumbatha to her, her sense of independence and freedom, end up separating them. And the closely woven fabric of township life, where everyone knows everyone else, has a mesh too tight and too intricate to allow her to escape her circumstances on her own.
Vera exploits language to peel away the skin of public and private lives. In Butterfly Burning she captures the ebullience and the bitterness of township life, as well as the strength and courage of her unforgettable heroine.

Butterfly Burning: A Novel

United States

Winner of the Macmillan Prize for African Adult Fiction
An uncompromising novel by one of Africa's premiere writers, detailing the horrors of civil war in luminous, haunting prose
In 1980, after decades of guerilla war against colonial rule, Rhodesia earned its hard-fought-for independence from Britain. Less than two years thereafter when Mugabe rose to power in the new Zimbabwe, it signaled the begining of brutal civil unrest that would last nearly a half decade more. 
With The Stone Virgins Yvonne Vera examines the dissident movement from the perspective of two sisters living in a small township outside of Bulawayo. In a portrait painted in successive impressions of life before and after the liberation, Vera explores the quest for dignity and a centered existence against a backdrop of unimaginable violence; the twin instincts of survival and love; the rival pulls of township and city life; and mankind's capacity for terror, beauty, and sacrifice. One sister will find a reason for hope. One will not make it through alive. 
Weaving historical fact within a story of grand passions and striking endurance, Vera has gifted us with a powerful and provocative testament to the resilience of the Zimbabwean people.

A novel of delicacy and insight, evoking the power and mystery of the Zimbabwean past.

Nehanda (Southern Africa Specialised Studies Series)

Contemporary

Baobab Books

Why Don't You Carve Other Animals

he's unprepared for. In "Glimpses into the Higginsons' Closet," through

Why don't you carve other animals

and religious ideology. In "The Headmaster's Visit," we watch a headmaster

Without a name

Fiction. African American Studies. The place is the white-ruled Rhodesia of the seventies (now Zimbabwe), the exile the African in his own land. Young men and women flee their villages to join the freedom fighters in the forests. These stories, set during the years of the armed struggle, tell of the other struggle, that of survival of those who stayed behind. Yvonne Vera, born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, tells her stories from a woman's point of view, in lyrical but unaffected prose, recreating the dark atmosphere of those months full of fear and hope.

TSAR Publications

Fiction. African American Studies. Set in Yvonne Vera's native country of Zimbabwe, NEHANDA tells the story of a late nineteenth century village where a young woman has been given a divine calling: the gift to inspire a war. Told in beautifully lucid and evocative prose, this is the portrait of resistance and struggle, a tale of a people's first meeting with colonialism. A stunning, beautiful and poetic novel. --The Herald (Zimbabwe)

Nehanda

Fiction. African American Studies. From the opening sentence--Heat mauled the upturned faces.---on, WITHOUT A NAME burns forward with graceful, poetic power. Set in Zimbabwe, this novel tracks a young woman's journey for refuge while her country is in the midst of guerrilla war. Vera is the author of the short story collection WHY DON'T YOU CARVE OTHER ANIMALS and the novel NEHANDA, both short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers Award Africa Region.

Without a Name

Fiction. African &amp; African American Studies. New Edition with an introduction by M G Vassanji. In the late nineteenth century white settlers and administrators arrive to occupy the African country of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). Nehanda, a village girl, is recognized through omens and portents as a saviour. The resulting uprising by the Africans is brutally crushed but looks forward to the war of independence that succeeded a century later. Told in lucid, poetic prose, this is a gripping story about the first meeting of a people with their colonizer.

Mawenzi House Publishers Ltd.

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Books by Vera, Yvonne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Vera, Yvonne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Stone Virgins: A Novel

Butterfly Burning: A Novel

The Stone Virgins: A Novel

Nehanda (Southern Africa Specialised Studies Series)

Why don't you carve other animals

Without a name

Why Don't You Carve Other Animals

Nehanda

Without a Name

Nehanda