The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe.

GODWIN, Peter [Peter Matthiessen].

$275.00

Item Number: 139495

New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010.

First edition of this “important book detailing the violent realities, the grotesque injustices, the hunger, the sadness, and a portrait of Mugabe” (Paul Theroux). Octavo, original boards. Boldly signed by Peter Godwin on the title page. From the library of National Book Award-winning author Peter Matthiessen with his bookplate to the front pastedown. Very good in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Allison J. Warner.

Godwin arrived as Robert Mugabe, the country's dictator for 30 years, has finally lost an election. Mugabe's tenure has left Zimbabwe with the world's highest rate of inflation and the shortest life span. Instead of conceding power, Mugabe launched a brutal campaign of terror against his own citizens. With foreign correspondents banned, and he himself there illegally, Godwin was one of the few observers to bear witness to this period the locals call The Fear. He saw torture bases and the burning villages but was most awed as an observer of not only simple acts of kindness but also churchmen and diplomats putting their own lives on the line to try to stop the carnage. The Fear is a book about the astonishing courage and resilience of a people, armed with nothing but a desire to be free, who challenged a violent dictatorship. It is also the deeply personal and ultimately uplifting story of a man trying to make sense of the country he can't recognize as home.