House of Stone The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe

Once considered an idyllic place to live, the beautiful land of Eastern Zimbabwe turned into a bloody battleground and the center of a violent campaign in August 2002. One morning, white farmer Nigel Hough came face-to-face with a crowd of black war veterans at his gates, who demanded that he hand over his homestead or he would be killed. To his shock, he saw that the leader of this mob was his family's much-loved nanny, Aqui, who told him, "There is no place for whites in this country." The intertwined voices of Nigel and Aqui bring immediacy and emotion to the history of the brutal civil war and independence. In riveting interviews, readers learn about two people on opposing sides who were born within a few miles of each otherNigel, who played cricket and piloted his own plane, and Aqui, who grew up in a mud hut and was often hungry. The personal accounts document the terrible trajectory of the last British colony to become independent, as well as the descent into madness of Robert Mugabe, once one of Africa's most respected nationalist leaders.

Christina Lamb is a foreign affairs correspondent for the The Sunday Times and the author of The Africa House, The Sewing Circles of Herat, and Waiting for Allah.