Through the Darkness: A Life in Zimbabwe

Selected as one of The Economists Best Books of 2007! For more than three decades, Judith Todd has been at loggerheads with successive governments of Zimbabwe. After being jailed and then exiled by Ian Smith's regime, she returned to her country in 1980 and soon realised that, far from being the solution to Zimbabwe's ills, Robert Mugabe and Zanu (PF) were increasingly becoming the problem. As the country slid into social and economic decline, Todd's position as director of a local development agency gave her a unique vantage point from which to observe the increasing arrogance and cruelty of Zimbabwe's leaders and the suffering and struggles of ordinary citizens. Peopled with household names from diplomats and politicians to international correspondents and liberation leaders, Through the Darkness takes readers from the family ranch outside Bulawayo to Buckingham Palace, from the bowels of Zimbabwe's prisons to the inner sanctums of Mugabe's cabinet. It is also the story of the country's silenced people - their courage, their irrepressible humour, their hopes and their feelings of betrayal. Drawing from journals, letters and documents, this is a fascinating personal account of life in Zimbabwe