The Grass Is Singing

I don’t remember if there is actual wildlife in this book (apart from a dog), but nature plays a big part in the story. It was one of the first novels about Africa I read and it moved me deeply. Doris Lessing has written quite a few books about Africa, some political, others with a focus on the land, its people, and nature. She grew up in Zimbabwe (which was called Rhodesia back then) and is an award-winning author. I had to include at least one of her books in my list, so there.

This is one of the books that first stirred my interest in Africa, the tragedies of the colonial period, and the enormous impact of that period forevermore. As a result of Doris Lessing’s novel, which draws heavily on her own life in Africa, exploring the power and fear between the two sides through a relationship between a white woman running a farm in what was to become Zimbabwe and a black servant, I studied African politics at university and then spent a lot of time after I graduated on the continent. It’s a love affair that has never faded.