When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a memoir by Peter Godwin, chronicling his repeated visits to Zimbabwe from 1996 to 2004 as his aging father battles heart illness amid the country’s dramatic decline. Through ten trips, Godwin reveals Zimbabwe’s fall from a hopeful post-independence nation into corruption, poverty, and violence under Robert Mugabe’s rule. The book intertwines personal family stories—including the discovery of his father’s hidden past as a Polish Jewish refugee—with the nation’s political turmoil, highlighting the deep human cost of Zimbabwe’s crisis. As a journalist and native Zimbabwean, Godwin offers a vivid, firsthand account of a country and family under siege.
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