Overview

In 1978, in the final, bloodiest phase of Rhodesia's struggle to become Zimbabwe, eleven-year-old Lauren St John moves with her family to a wild, beautiful farm on the banks of a slow-flowing river. The house was the scene of a horrific guerrilla attack and settling there changes Lauren's life irrevocably. RAINBOW'S END captures the overwhelming beauty and extraordinary danger of life in the African bush. Lauren's childhood reads like a girl's own adventure story as, at the height of the war, she rides through the wilderness on her horse, Morning Star, encountering lions, crocodiles, vicious ostriches and mad cows. Yet the greatest threat is the ruthless guerrillas who prowl the land, making each day more dangerous, vivid and prized than the last.

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9780753829233

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Reviews

A captivating and haunting memoir HUDDERSFIELD DAILY EXAMINER 20120211 The starkly honest memoirs of a white Rhodesian forced to face up to the racist, violent truth of her society...St. John's disarming frankness triumphs. FINANCIAL TIMES Highly evocative, beautifully written...a world of striking colours...a tapestry of innocence, while the brutal reality of life encroaches into the travesty which is now modern Zimbabwe. DAILY EXPRESS A girl's-eye-view of life in 1970s Rhodesia: as powerful as Alexandra Fuller's classic Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight. SUNDAY TIMES Precise, evocative and funny. Even as the Smith regime crumbles, as Mugabe waits to exact revenge and you know disillusionment is going to follow, you are irresistibly drawn into this personal story...A fine book. DAILY MAIL This is a paean of praise for what Zimbabwe has lost, but might find again. It is also a heart-rending account of the searing, slow dissolution of marriage...This is an important book, worth reading for many reasons. THE TIMES This memoir works on many levels. It is a spot on account of coming of age in the 1970s, at once universal and intensely African. It also raises questions about the moral gymnastics of the time...Above all, this is a memoir of a country. It is a love letter to a harsh yet beautiful land, with invigorating prose soaked in African sunshine. Its poignancy stems from the way in which Lauren's attempts to work out who she is parallel her beloved nation's struggle to do the same. NEW STATESMAN A gripping account...told with depth and humour. St John comes of age amid a harrowing civil war and the dissolution of her parents' marriage. VOGUE Packed with so much of Africa's sights, smells and sounds that the place - beloved, beautiful, and troubled - practically seeps from its pages. CHICAGO TRIBUNE Astonishingly evocative and wonderfully written. DAILY MAIL Lovingly recalled...St John powerfully conveys the implosion of her moral world, her complex disillusionment and her hard decision to leave this snake-rich Eden. THE SUNDAY TIMES

A captivating and haunting memoir HUDDERSFIELD DAILY EXAMINER 20120211

Author Information

Lauren St John was born in Gatooma, Rhodesia, now Kadoma, Zimbabwe, in December 1966. After studying journalism in Africa, she moved to London, where she was for many years the golf correspondent for The Sunday Times. She is the author of several books on sports, a biography of country rocker Steve Earle and the children's novels The White Giraffe and The Last Leopard.

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