A bestseller in France.

Sample translation available.

Zimbabwe's President, cynically viewed by the people as “democratically elected for life”, decides in favor of the expropriation of white homesteaders. At first, the community doesn’t believe it, assured as it is of its privileges and its seniority within the country. But faced with the capricious nature of a tyrant, his militia and the resentment of their former employees, they decide that they must either organize or become exiles within their native land. Thomas Cornu, a gentleman farmer, counts among those who up until this point were on very good terms with the powers that be. His two daughters, Fanny and Blues, are haughty, beautiful, frivolous, and flighty -- the products of a Western education, they both hold a sense of entitlement now completely at odds with the sudden and brutal expropriation, forcing them to reconsider their destinies, their priorities and their beliefs. In an unexpected turn, Blues meets and falls in love with an adventurer who inspires her to rally political opposition to the President amid the many contrasting reactions of those around her.

This epic, sweeping historical novel is a Zimbabwean Gone with the Wind. It tells of the tragic loss of a way of life and its ideals, as it reckons with the shared heritage and complex interdependencies between blacks and whites in southern Africa. What distinguishes the novel beyond the author's masterful narrative and powerful prose is her choice, as a native of Cameroon, to write from the perspective of the white farmers. Evoking the ambiguous and antagonistic relations between Africa and the Western world, it brings to light the paradoxes of Africa’s historical development after its independence and subsequent domination by corrupt tribal leaders.