The White Shadow

Tinashe is a small boy growing up in revolutionary Rhodesia. He revels in the freedom of youth: swimming in the lazy brown river, playing with his friends, envying his city-cousin Abel's private schooling and motorcar, and working diligently at the lessons he loves. When his mother (Amai) falls pregnant, Tinashe and his father expect another boy to be born. Alas, a girl is brought into the world. Little Hazvinei is strange and unnatural; she bites and refuses to speak. Tinashe becomes her strongest ally, caring for and protecting her. As she grows older, and the revolution begins to cast shadows across their carefree world, Tinashe begins to understand that Hazvinei is a child of the spirits - and she will stop at nothing to realise what she believes is her destiny.

The White Shadow is an extraordinarily drawn tale. There is no trace of the white female voice in its narrative; the voice is that of a young Shona boy's, meticulous in every detail. Eames does not flinch from depicting the struggles of post-colonial Africa in all their savagery; she does not allow her characters an easy 'out' from the paths they choose to follow. The boy Tinashe's private education is only made possible by the death of his parents from cholera; his dreams of an education are shattered by his obligation to his sister. Yet, with the uncanny wisdom bestowed on one who lives in uncertain times, in the gulf between the material world and the Shona spirit world, he is philosophical about his loss. A child of the veldt, he believes that he will be reincarnated and his spirit will pass into an animal, as his Hazvinei's has been.

'One day,' he says, 'my white shadow will crawl out of my grave and into the unforgiving light, where it will wander for a year as an animal. And then I will join her.'