Written with love and compassion for the people of Zimbabwe - Rated 
I have read both of Peter Godwin's books - Mukiwe and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. Mr Godwin's insight into daily lives and suffering of both his own family, friends and the people of Zimbabwe, is heart-breaking reading but read it you must. He has written a book of great depth and magnitude which took me back to my days in what was once a beautiful and proud country now reduced to ruin by a despot and his military cronies.
I hope that his next book on Zimbabwe will not be long in coming - I'll be the first to snap it up!
Wonderful but heart rendingly sad - Rated
Wow! What a super book! I really enjoyed reading this, Peter Godwin clearly has a true love of Zimbabwe and this is clear from the power and beauty of the writing. However, the tragedy of this book is not only in the intensely personal story that he recounts about the decline and death of his father, but also, that of Zimbabwe. The real tragedy is that the suffering, repression and destruction of the country continues unabated. A very good book to read and a sympathetic portrait of personal and political tragedy.
Buy it! - Rated
That's an order! Tremendous piece of work by Peter Godwin. Whilst being very personal (being a story about his own family), Godwin unveils a waterfall of information about a torn country suffering from the dictatorship of the infamous Mugabe.
I have read many books on the plight of countries, including China (Mao: The Unkown Story), Nicaragua (Jaguar Smile) etc, but on finishing When a Crocodile Eats the Sun I feel completely useless, and hopeless, to a cause far beyond my help. Brilliant.
an excellent insight to another life - Rated
I love reading a book from which I can learn something. We vaguely understand what happened to Rhodesia. We watch from a distance and this wonderful book tells it as it is with such compassion and understanding and with real learning. Heartbreaking truths and in places very funny.
Complex and Brilliant - Rated
There is nothing superficial about this carefully detailed yet succinct memoir. It is a first hand expose of the Mugabe regime which has made Zimbabwe "the world's fastest shrinking economy" by looting the white farmers' land. It is a searing indictment of the corrupt regime and its minions. All is seen through the experiences of the author's parents, an elderly English couple who quietly suffer increasing hardships in the middle of a crazed situation. This is a country where innocent people can be gunned down for no reason at all. The author's older sister was killed just that way in an ambush at the age of 27, a few weeks before her wedding. Yet the parents insist on remaining in Zimbabwe. This may seem inexplicable, but I know many elderly people who would remain in their dangerous neighborhoods in American cities while around them was crime and devastation, rather than uproot themselves. It's not really that different, only far worse, because the government in Zimbabwe encourages and instigates the mayhem that afflicts the country. It would not be "spoiling" to reveal, as have the reviews, that the author discovers his father is not originally English, but a Polish Jew who has concealed his origins from his children. It is to the credit of the author that he does not flinch from recording his own repulsion at being a "hybrid", half Jewish. For years the white population was privileged in Rhodesia, waited upon by the poor blacks, as one of the photos captures. This does not justify what is being done to these elderly whites now, they do not deserve to spend their later years in a collapsed economy where pensions and life insurance are worthless, and their few possessions are always in danger of being hijacked by envious interlopers. In fact, their lives are in constant danger. Peter Godwin, the author, has written an invaluable memoir and expose. Zimbabwe is in anarchy, and living there must be a Hegelian nightmare.
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