Audiobook6 hours
The Stone Virgins
Written by Yvonne Vera
Narrated by Danai Gurira
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Award-winning author Yvonne Vera is one of Zimbabwe's most acclaimed writers and social critics. The New Yorker calls The Stone Virgins "haunting." After decades of guerrilla war, Rhodesia finally succeeded in severing the reigns of British colonial rule. But by 1982, the leadership of Robert Mugabe had led the country toward a horrifying outbreak of violence and brutality. The effects of the liberation are still being confronted today.
Author
Yvonne Vera
Yvonne Vera is one of Zimbabwe's best known authors. She was born in Bulawayo, where she now works as the director of the National Gallery. Her novels include Without a Name, and Under the Tongue, which recevied the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa region).
Related to The Stone Virgins
Related audiobooks
Never Look an American in the Eye: A Memoir of Flying Turtles, Colonial Ghosts, and the Making of a Nigerian American Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dance of the Jakaranda Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Madonna of Excelsior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Day I Will Write About This Place Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radiance of Tomorrow: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diaries of a Dead African (Meme's Diary) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Place of Cool Waters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5GraceLand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Golddiggers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The People of Ostrich Mountain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Mournable Body: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Time of Need: A Collection of Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silence is My Mother Tongue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nights of the Creaking Bed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Whispering Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Accra Noir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Name Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Book Betrays My Brother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Who Is Not a Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Dependence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Father is Born: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Other Names, Other Places Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tuesday's Child: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Better Never than Late Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Easy Motion Tourist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Trouble Sleeps Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Small Silence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ten Thousand Rocks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
Tom Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Covenant of Water Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Measure: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yellowface: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Keeper of Lost Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5West with Giraffes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The It Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Stone Virgins
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
12 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A difficult novel to read, dealing with the violence around and after Zimbabwe's independence from a very direct, personal and shatteringly painful viewpoint. A young woman is murdered in a village outside Bulawayo; her sister is also attacked and left seriously injured and disfigured, and has to find a way to get back to something like normal life. We are shown the world in which these things happen in an apparently objective, poetic way — the scenery, the buildings, the weather and vegetation, the normal lives of the people in Bulawayo and the village, the fighters who have returned from the bush, the memories and visible signs of pre-colonial heritage — and we are taken into the minds of the women to participate in a very subjective way in what is happening to them, but we are left to work out for ourselves how these things fit together, what it is in the external world that might have provoked this outburst of violence, and what the world's (limited) resources for palliating its effects might be. A rather beautiful book, full of memorable language and images, but not really a comforting read. Vera leaves her characters living in a mental world full of jagged edges and unexploded mines, and we aren't given much hope that they will be able to avoid them for long.