by Peter Godwin
—The Economist, “Best Books of the Year”
“The Fear is utterly fearless…. It twists in the hurricane winds of a country gone mad…. Incredibly vivid and haunting.”
—James Zug, Boston Globe
“Following on his compelling and moving memoirs, Peter Godwin’s The Fear is a personal journey through the country he grew up in. At no small risk to himself, Godwin traveled widely in Zimbabwe to see the torture bases, the opposition leaders, and the last white farmers. Told with Godwin’s brilliant eye for character and natural storytelling gifts, this dark story of corruption and violence is populated by extraordinary people.”
—Philip Kerr, Newsweek
“The difference between learning of these events in the occasional news report and reading about them in Peter Godwin’s mesmerizing The Fear is like the difference between receiving a valentine and having someone deliver a still beating and bleeding heart to your doorstep…. Godwin is a skilled storyteller and scene setter, with a novelist’s knack for selecting the detail that paints the whole…. When a writer with such powers sets out to break your heart, you had best be prepared to have it broken. But The Fear is far more than a catalog of human rights violations and tragedy, in no small part due to the astonishing courage and determination of the Zimbabweans Godwin interviewed. Even those left cold by the usual run of ‘inspirational’ literature will find these stories stirring.”
—Laura Miller, Salon
“Peter Godwin’s most recent book, The Fear, updates the continuing story of popular resistance…. If you want a catalog of Mugabe’s sins, turn to Godwin’s books. But don’t read them just for outrage at the terrible offense to humanity. They also describe a new sort of Zimbabwean, emancipated from racial and tribal feeling by a long common struggle against a man who doesn’t scruple to employ racial and tribal demagoguery.”
—Christopher Hitchens, Slate
“The Fear is a gut-wrenching portrait of Mugabe’s enormous political sadism—and the brave, heartbreaking, nearly superhuman resistance to it…. In the hands of a less talented writer, The Fear could have become simply too painful to read. But while Godwin spares us nothing, he writes with such compassion, poetry, and ironic humor that you cannot put his book down…. The Fear is a visceral masterpiece. It’s illuminating, infuriating, and informative. And its implications extend far beyond Zimbabwe—to the northern end of the continent and beyond, where similar struggles are being waged against other tyrannical dictators. The Fear is as important a book as we can read right now. It makes each and every one of us witness.”
—Susan Jane Gilman, NPR, All Things Considered
“Highbrow, brilliant.”
—New York
“The Fear is not only extraordinary journalism; it is also a refutation of Mugabe’s big idea: that race determines everything…. Godwin goes on to produce the most comprehensive account yet of the brutality that followed the 2008 general election…. Godwin’s reporting uncovers a paradoxical hope. By impoverishing all Zimbabweans, Mugabe forged a tentative unity among them, whatever their color…. A true Zimbabwean like Roy Bennett—like Godwin himself—transcends race.”
—Alex Perry, Time
“What stands out from Godwin’s gripping narrative is not just the scale of death and destruction that Mugabe is willing to inflict on his country for the sake of staying in power, but the extraordinary courage of Zimbabweans who defy his tyranny, knowing full well the consequences of doing so.”
—Martin Meredith, Washington Post
“The Fear is an urgent and essential book: a stunning account of a dictator’s determination to destroy his people, and of his people’s refusal to be destroyed. Peter Godwin is one of those people, and this, his third superb memoir, is both a record of Zimbabwe’s defiance and an expression of it. Written in the teeth of devastation and despair, without recourse to sentimentality or false hope, it is a heroic account of political heroism—and it makes for relentlessly gripping reading.”
—Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
“The Fear is an important book, not least because Mr. Godwin names names—of rapists, torturers, and killers—and one hopes that they get what’s coming to them. In cataloging the victims, he shows the extraordinary courage of those standing up to Mr. Mugabe.”
—Douglas Rogers, Wall Street Journal
“A poignant, heartbreaking tour of his former home.”
—G. Pascal Zachary, San Francisco Chronicle
“Given Godwin’s steady gaze back toward his home country over the past decade and a half, it is tempting to categorize The Fear as a sequel to his memoirs, but this work is too uncompromising and fierce for that…. In order to write truthfully, an author has to risk—court, even—eviction from his or her ‘tribe.’ In The Fear, Godwin recognizes the shelter of his own whiteness, and as a result he is able to see and write about the limitations of his own viewpoint with disarming and illuminating frankness…. The result is his most powerful work to date…. Godwin gives the rest of the world a reason to act. He argues that justice is not only possible in Zimbabwe, it is essential.”
—Alexandra Fuller, Harper’s
“Personal, well-informed, and at times, heart-racing…. Godwin’s skills as a journalist and his personal connection to Zimbabwe combine to create an astonishing piece of reportage marked by spare, stirring description, heartrending action, and smart analysis.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Peter Godwin’s passionate and courageous memoir catalogs Zimbabwe’s descent into horror with such vivid detail that the squeamish reader would do well to look away now. It comprehensively catalogs the evidence of the depths of depravity to which Mugabe’s goons have descended in their drug-and alcohol-fueled rampage against a citizenry whose only crime has been to indicate a desire for change…. But this is not just a book about the savagery of Mugabe’s goons. It is a testament to the courage and resilience of my fellow countrymen and women…. Godwin’s heroes refuse to back down. Again and again they find ways to resist. This remarkable courage runs a thread of hope through the book.”
—Wilf Mbanga, The Guardian
“Having adored Peter Godwin’s previous intelligent and moving books about his native Zimbabwe, I couldn’t imagine he had still more important tales to tell me. But I was so wrong. The Fear is his best and most indispensable book yet, a riveting and deeply informative believe-it-or-not chronicle of a tragic real-life Bizarro World.”
—Kurt Andersen, author of Heyday
“There is nothing on the subject of Robert Mugabe’s terror state that comes even close to Peter Godwin’s brilliant account. It took great courage to pursue this horror at close range, as Godwin did. This book will change utterly readers’ perceptions of what is happening in this afflicted corner of Africa.”
—Norman Rush, author of Mating and Mortals
“Godwin’s account is harrowing, describing tortures that sometimes test the limit of comprehension.”
—The New Yorker
“In the savage gangster world of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Peter Godwin was able to go where other reporters cannot and tell us what others could not—because he is Zimbabwean, and knows what his country has been and could be. You don’t know whether to be more shocked by the monstrousness of the regime’s thugs or the luminous humanity of its opponents.”
—James Traub, author of The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power
“Godwin is the kind of writer who finds beauty in adversity, and so there is much that is lovely in these books…. His heartbreaking journey of witnessing, of getting the word out when no one else can, becomes the reader’s burden as well. The Fear is no cozy indulgence. There are no happy endings here. But as he has done before, Godwin weaves beauty into this devastation.”
—Tracey Samuelson, Christian Science Monitor
“Peter Godwin has carved out
a niche as a skillful chronicler of politics and war in his native Zimbabwe…. The accretion of detail builds into a damning portrait of a regime that has lost all its moral bearings, a gang of thieves and murderers bent on holding power at any cost…. Three years after his defeat at the polls, Mugabe still clings to power in his ruined nation. But Godwin’s intrepid reportage has at least given voice to some of his victims.”
—Joshua Hammer, New York Times Book Review
“At last, a chronicle of the mess that is Zimbabwe. The Fear is an important book detailing the violent realities, the grotesque injustices, the hunger, the sadness, and a portrait of Mugabe, the tyrant who is the cause of it all. It is especially valuable because Godwin, born in Zimbabwe, is passionate and personal, as well as bold in his travel and scrupulous in his documentation.”
—Paul Theroux, author of Ghost Train to the Eastern Star
“Godwin has written several excellent books on his country’s torments…. At its heart, The Fear is a beautiful and terrible weapon against such stupidity, a book that thrashes the reader almost as relentlessly as Mugabe thrashed Zimbabwe’s electorate in the run-up to the second round of presidential elections. Each scene is more horrifying than the last.”
—Rian Malan, Bookforum
“Urgent…. Nobody does it as well as Peter Godwin.”
—Emily Witt, New York Observer
“Godwin’s The Fear, a powerful—and often achingly personal—account of recent events in Zimbabwe, is a necessary book. I can’t recommend it more highly to anyone seeking to understand the current, and historical, situation in this troubled, beautiful country.”
—Peter Orner, author of The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo
“The author’s account is harrowing and not for the faint-hearted…. Godwin relates these stories in pointed, immediate prose…. His work serves as an invaluable, urgent dispatch from a country in the throes of an international humanitarian crisis. The author’s return to his beloved homeland transformed by violence and no longer familiar proves heart-wrenching and extremely moving.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Chronicling the violence, the suffering, and the chaos; recounting the stories of torture survivors and victims of politically motivated vigilantism; and examining Mugabe’s biography and politics (and placing himself in significant danger in the process), Godwin only occasionally recognizes the Zimbabwe of his childhood. But, finding heroism and resistance in the face of horrific carnage, he discovers a side of the nation that he had not known before…. The Fear is an important work of witness.”
—Brendan Driscoll, Booklist
“Within this riveting exposure of the savage corruption of power is the affecting story of Godwin’s own family losses—a life, a home, a country, and a future, all lost. I read this book as one would a prophecy.”
—Lynn Freed, author of The Servants’ Quarters and House of Women
“The Fear is as much Godwin’s personal story as it is a profile of Robert Mugabe, and he keeps the story consistently engaging…. The pain he feels is both individual and universal.”
—John T. Slania, BookPage
“The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe is an equally gripping, gut-wrenching report from this nation in terrible decline.”
—Very Short List
“Passionate, personal, and exhaustively researched, this memoir by Zimbabwe native Peter Godwin exposes the ravages of dictator Robert Mugabe’s reign.”
—Karen Holt, O, The Oprah Magazine
“You think you know what’s happened in Zimbabwe: how Robert Mugabe, drunk on power, drove a beautiful country into a ditch. But you’ve never seen the story told like this. The Fear is riveting, heartbreaking, almost unbearably vivid. It’s even funny, and full of heroes. An unforgettable book.”
—William Finnegan, author of Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid
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COPYRIGHT © 2010 BY PETER GODWIN
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ISBN: 978-0-316-12331-0