Nervous Conditions is a book about the emancipation of women in African Society. The reason why this is my first statement is because this is drilled in your head from the first sentence. It is an autobiography and in it Dangarembga speaks about how she survived the overtly male characters through education, persistence and luck.
Saying that this is not like, say Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, where the male race is treated as the most evil species on Earth, here the author gives us both the good and bad qualities of her characters, but ultimately there is the fact that Zimbabwe society is a heavily male dominated race which the female must break out of.
Nervous conditions is a very powerful novel full of interesting insights about tribe hierarchy and customs so it served. The book ends on a cliff hanger so if you are interested Dangarembga has written a sequel, which, judging by Nervous Condition’s ending, focuses on colonialism.
The Bobsphere 