Nervous Conditions
First edition | |
| Author | Tsitsi Dangarembga |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Bildungsroman |
| Publisher | The Women's Press (London) |
Publication date | 1988 |
| Publication place | Zimbabwe |
| Pages | 204 |
| ISBN | 0-7043-4100-X |
| OCLC | 21118465 |
| LC Class | PR9390.9.D36 N47 1988 |
| Followed by | The Book of Not |
Nervous Conditions is the 1988 debut novel by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga. The semi-autobiographical novel focuses on the story of a Shona family in post-colonial Rhodesia during the 1960s, and centers on the themes of race, colonialism, and gender .
It was the first book published by a black woman from Zimbabwe in English. Nervous Conditions won Best Book of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa section) in 1989.The title is taken from the introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
Nervous Conditions is the first book of a trilogy, with The Book of Not (2006) as the second novel in the series, and This Mournable Body (2018) as the third.