A Study Guide for Tsitsi Dangaremba's "Nervous Conditions"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Tsitsi Dangaremba's "Nervous Conditions," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535829434

Book preview

09

Nervous Conditions

Tsitsi Dangarembga

1988

Introduction

Nervous Conditions, a novel by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga, was first published in 1988, and is currently available in a 2004 edition. Set over a period of about ten years, from the 1960s to the early 1970s, Nervous Conditions takes place in Zimbabwe before the country had attained official independence from Britain and while it was still known as Southern Rhodesia or simply Rhodesia. The novel is semiautobiographical; the author draws on her own experience of growing up in Rhodesia during that period. Nervous Conditions centers around the experience of several female characters as they either challenge, or come to terms with, the traditional patriarchal structure of their society. The young narrator, Tambu, must show great determination as she overcomes all the obstacles to her progress in life. She also has to learn how to understand, largely through the difficult experiences of her cousin Nyasha, the negative effects that British colonialism has had on her society.

One of the few novels written by a black Zimbabwean about this transitional time in Zimbabwe's history, Nervous Conditions gives valuable insight into the traditional life of the country's native Shona-speaking people. The novel is an important contribution to postcolonial literature, a term that refers to works by authors from countries formerly colonized by European governments.

Author Biography

Tsitsi Dangarembga was born in 1959 in Mukoto, in the African country then known as Southern Rhodesia, and now known as Zimbabwe. At the time, Rhodesia was a British colony. At the age of two, Dangarembga moved with her family to Britain, where she remained until she was six years old, after which she returned to Rhodesia and attended a missionary school in the city of Umtali, which is now called Mutare.

In the 1970s, Dangarembga returned to Britain, attending Cambridge University, where she studied medicine. However, Dangarembga became homesick in England and returned to her home country in 1980, the year in which Zimbabwe finally attained its independence from Britain. Dangarembga continued her education, studying psychology at the University of Zimbabwe and becoming active in the student drama club. She found she had a talent for writing plays, and a number of her plays were produced at the university. These included The Lost of the Soil (1983), which she also directed. Dangarembga then became involved in a theater group called Zambuko. In 1987, Dangarembga's play She No Longer Weeps was published in Harare.

Dangarembga had also developed an interest in writing prose fiction. In 1985, her short story The Letter was published in Whispering

Reviews for A Study Guide for Tsitsi Dangaremba's "Nervous Conditions"

[Christopher Olsen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A thorough and helpful summary and analysis of this important novel. For UNISA students, this is helpful for the course ENG2603 (as of 2019).