Overview

A stunning memoir that transforms our understanding of a generation In my home country, they call me a 'bornfree'. Simukai Chigudu was one of the first generation to be born after the end of colonial rule in Zimbabwe. Growing up he heard stories about his grandfather's murder by the Rhodesian regime, how his father had been imprisoned and tortured as a student before joining the bloody war of independence as a guerilla, and how his mother had thrown off the strictures of the past to build a successful career helping other women do the same. Yet Simukai's early life was also steeped in British tradition. With his classmates he sang English folk songs, read Shakespeare, played cricket. Then, in 2002, he was one of thousands to leave the country as it descended into political violence and economic collapse. His new home- a boarding school in the north of England. What followed was a culture shock that unravelled his understanding of the world, his family and himself. Chasing Freedom is his profound and remarkably moving story - that of a boy shaped through his parents' buried trauma by the great currents of late-twentieth century history. It is the story of a family haunted by the cause of liberation, and of a new generation, still searching for their promised freedom.

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9781847927194

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Reviews

A fascinating memoir, both intimate and epic, which will teach you more about the legacies of colonialism than a hundred op-eds, or a dozen textbooks -- Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland A deeply personal and moving exploration of the intersections of history, identity, and belonging … A raw and unflinching account of the search for self amid the burdens of the past -- Peter Godwin, author of Exit Wounds In Chasing Freedom, Simukai Chigudu seamlessly blends the history of African colonization and the jagged paths to independence with the story of his remarkable family. But this book is so much more. It is also the story of those for whom these massive global transformations were mere backdrops for growing up across continents, cultures and agendas - of those children of African liberation now empowered to remake the world that colonialism made -- Louis Chude-Sokei, author of Floating in a Most Peculiar Way Simukai Chigudu’s Chasing Freedom is a raw and moving memoir — a complicated, engrossing, and, ultimately, brilliant portrait of a family navigating the minefields of the postcolonial world -- Jonny Steinberg, author of Man of Good Hope and Nelson and Winnie

A fascinating memoir, both intimate and epic, which will teach you more about the legacies of colonialism than a hundred op-eds, or a dozen textbooks -- Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland

Author Information

Simukai Chigudu is associate professor of African politics at the University of Oxford and fellow of St. Antony's College. He was previously a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is one of the founding members of Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford, a campaign to decolonize the university - and remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College.

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