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Far From Home (Na'ima B Robert)

by Na’ima B Robert

Interest age: 11+
Reading age: 11+

Published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2011

  • Around the world
  • Coming-of-age

About this book

14 year old Tariro is the beautiful daughter of a tribal chief in Rhodesia. Her life is perfect, living on fertile farmland, surrounded by a loving family and engaged to the most handsome boy in the village. But the year is 1964 and Tariro's world is suddenly torn apart by white settlers laying claim to her native land. As she loses everything she loves Tariro is forced to fight for what is rightfully hers.

36 years later we meet Katie, a white farmer's daughter living a charmed life in what is now Zimbabwe. Surrounded by luxury, Katie is oblivious to the inequalities that make her life so comfortable. The girls' lives, however, are intrinsically linked and as the story unfolds they are gradually drawn together.

This moving tale describes the violent history of Zimbabwe as seen through the eyes of two very different young girls.

About the author

Na’ima B Robert is an African Muslim woman of mixed descent who grew up in Zimbabwe. She sees writing for children as ‘writing a love letter to the next generation’. She writes to reflect experiences that are often unspoken, unexplored and uncelebrated and to show ‘the complexity and beauty of our struggles and triumphs as nonmembers of the dominant culture’.

She wants to disrupt the narrative that paints people of colour and their experiences as ‘other’, instead placing children at the centre of stories that reflect their lived reality. Her work explores themes of identity, belonging, faith, respect for difference and, ultimately, pride in all that makes each of us unique. Na’ima has also published under the name Thando McLaren. She lives in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.

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