In 1984, Peter Godwin returned to Zimbabwe after his father’s heart attack, beginning a series of journeys back to the land of his birth. From New York, he watched his family’s home unravel under the grip of dictatorship and economic collapse, each visit revealing a nation sinking deeper into chaos.
His parents, however, refused to leave. Even as comfort gave way to scarcity and neighbors fled, they clung to the land they had called home for fifty years. Then came a revelation that recast everything: his father’s hidden identity, and the reason Africa had always been his sanctuary.
Both intimate memoir and national tragedy, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a haunting story of loyalty, survival, and the quiet strength of love amid disintegration.
