Peter Godwin – författare

Growing up in Rhodesia in the 1960s, Peter Godwin inhabited a magical and frightening world of leopard-hunting, lepers, witch doctors, snakes and forest fires. As an adolescent, a conscript caught in the middle of a vicious civil war, and then as an adult who returned to Zimbabwe as a journalist to cover the bloody transition to majority rule, he discovered a land stalked by death and danger.

LONGLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION'Masterful' DAVE EGGERS'Unforgettable' MAGGIE SMITH'Profound' CLAIRE MESSUD'Will leave you breathless' AMINATTA FORMAWhen she turned ninety, my mother sprang a final surprise on us. She started speaking in the voice of a stranger. Peter's mother is dying. She finally drops her guard, losing all fear of conflict to become the family provocateur.While confronting the revelations of what his family was - and wasn't - and the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them, Peter reflects on his family's legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home. He makes us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own wounds.

After a decade in the London media, Joanna Coles and Peter Godwin set sail for a new life in New York. The Three of U.S. is the amusing diary of an affectionate but unconventional and frequently volatile relationship between two competing hypochondriacs about to become parents.He’s preoccupied by the lump on his elbow. She’s trying to determine the accuracy of the DIY pregnancy-testing kit.In September 1997, as the quay side band played them off in the drizzle, they anticipated a life of glamorous parties, power brunches and weekend trips to the Bahamas. She had been posted to New York as the Guardian correspondent – but discovered that most New Yorkers mistake the paper for the in-house pamphlet published by La Guardia Airport. He decided to write ‘the novel’: a year later, it’s largely unfinished.What will make them most anxious – learning that they earn less than their neighbour’s dog, or being mistaken for a serial killer by the local newsagent? Neither of these: it’s the pink line on the second box of the tester stick… For Joanna’s is a pelvis with a passenger.In this joint diary, we follow the progress of two resident aliens acclimatising to the eccentricities of the Big Apple – and to the idea of parenthood. Drawing on an eclectic cast of supporting characters – from over-achieving, pill-popping friends, to their drill sergeant of a birthing instructor and fearsome cleaning ladies – The Three of U.S. is a wryly real look at the panic of thirtysomethings everywhere.

This book tells the story of how White Rhodesians, three-quarters of whom were ill-prepared for revolutionary change, reacted to the `terrorist' war and the onset of Black rule in the 1970s. It shows how internal divisions - both old and new - undermined the supposed unity of White Rhodesia, how most Rhodesians begrudgingly accepted the inevitability of Black majority rule without adjusting to its implications, and how the self-appointed defenders of Western civilization sometimes adopted uncivilized methods of protecting the 'Rhodesian way of life'.This is a lively and accessible account, based on careful archival research and numerous personal interviews. It sets out to tell the story from the inside and to incorporate the diverse dimensions of the Rhodesian experience. The authors suggest that the Rhodesians were more differentiated than has often been assumed and that perhaps their greatest fault was an almost infinite capacity for self-delusion.

Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a post-colonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred.His father recovers, but over the next few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his own place in the world.Peter Godwin’s book combines vivid reportage, moving personal stories and revealing memoir, and traces his family’s quest to belong in hostile lands – a quest that spans three continents and half a century.‘Heartbreaking . . . Godwin plainly loves Africa, and he captures the baffling wayward contradictions of its people, their cruelties and unexpected kindnesses, their nobility of spirit in the face of appalling conditions, with humour and grace’ Daily Mail‘A wonderful book . . . beautifully written, packed with insight and free of rancour’ Literary Review‘A strong, heroic book . . . too vivid to bear and too central to our concerns to ignore’ Edmund White

Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a post-colonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred.His father recovers, but over the next few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his own place in the world.Peter Godwin’s book combines vivid reportage, moving personal stories and revealing memoir, and traces his family’s quest to belong in hostile lands – a quest that spans three continents and half a century.‘Heartbreaking . . . Godwin plainly loves Africa, and he captures the baffling wayward contradictions of its people, their cruelties and unexpected kindnesses, their nobility of spirit in the face of appalling conditions, with humour and grace’ Daily Mail‘A wonderful book . . . beautifully written, packed with insight and free of rancour’ Literary Review‘A strong, heroic book . . . too vivid to bear and too central to our concerns to ignore’ Edmund White

‘The most powerful indictment of Mugabe’s regime yet written’ The Economist‘A brave, sensitive and observant account of Zimbabwe’s tragedy, exposing the cruelty of Mugabe’s regime and the remarkable courage of those who have defied it’ Financial Times In mid-2008, after thirty years of increasingly tyrannical rule, Robert Mugabe lost an election. Instead of conceding defeat, his supporters launched a brutal campaign of terror – Zimbabweans called it, simply, The Fear.Peter Godwin travels, at considerable risk, to see the havoc raging at the heart of his country, but what emerges from the brutality are the heartbreaking tales of resistance and survival, the astonishing moments of humour and goodwill, and the unforgettable characters who will not be subdued.‘A beautifully written chronicle of his journey through his ravaged but still achingly beautiful homeland’ Independent‘An important book detailing the violent realities, the grotesque injustices, the hunger, the sadness, and a portrait of Mugabe, the tyrant who is the cause of it all’ Paul Theroux

‘The most powerful indictment of Mugabe’s regime yet written’ The Economist‘A brave, sensitive and observant account of Zimbabwe’s tragedy, exposing the cruelty of Mugabe’s regime and the remarkable courage of those who have defied it’ Financial Times In mid-2008, after thirty years of increasingly tyrannical rule, Robert Mugabe lost an election. Instead of conceding defeat, his supporters launched a brutal campaign of terror – Zimbabweans called it, simply, The Fear.Peter Godwin travels, at considerable risk, to see the havoc raging at the heart of his country, but what emerges from the brutality are the heartbreaking tales of resistance and survival, the astonishing moments of humour and goodwill, and the unforgettable characters who will not be subdued.‘A beautifully written chronicle of his journey through his ravaged but still achingly beautiful homeland’ Independent‘An important book detailing the violent realities, the grotesque injustices, the hunger, the sadness, and a portrait of Mugabe, the tyrant who is the cause of it all’ Paul Theroux

Growing up in Rhodesia in the 1960s, Peter Godwin inhabited a magical and frightening world of leopard-hunting, lepers, witch doctors, snakes and forest fires. As an adolescent, a conscript caught in the middle of a vicious civil war, and then as an adult who returned to Zimbabwe as a journalist to cover the bloody transition to majority rule, he discovered a land stalked by death and danger.

An “eloquent…beautiful” (The Wall Street Journal) memoir from award-winning writer Peter Godwin about his evolving relationships with the women and places that shaped his life.Peter Godwin’s mother is dying. Born in England, and having spent most of her adult life as a doctor in Zimbabwe, she now lies on a hospital bed in the partitioned living room of his sister’s London home. Peter has spent his life missing his Zimbabwean childhood, a longing that does not diminish as he reflects on his time as a journalist on the frontlines of combat around the world, or life in New York with his English wife and transatlantic children. In his mother’s final months, he must come to terms with everything his family was and wasn’t: the secrets they kept from one another, the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them, and the beauty of the wildly different places they called home. With generations of history behind him, Godwin lyrically brings us into the spaces which make us question and suffer, shows us how we can heal our own scars, and celebrate the lives we have among family and friends.

An '';eloquentbeautiful'' (The Wall Street Journal) memoir from award-winning writer Peter Godwin about his evolving relationships with the women and places that shaped his life.Peter Godwin''s mother is dying. Born in England, and having spent most of her adult life as a doctor in Zimbabwe, she now lies on a hospital bed in the partitioned living room of his sister''s London home. Peter has spent his life missing his Zimbabwean childhood, a longing that does not diminish as he reflects on his time as a journalist on the frontlines of combat around the world, or life in New York with his English wife and transatlantic children. In his mother''s final months, he must come to terms with everything his family was and wasn''t: the secrets they kept from one another, the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them, and the beauty of the wildly different places they called home. With generations of history behind him, Godwin lyrically brings us into the spaces which make us question and suffer, shows us how we can heal our own scars, and celebrate the lives we have among family and friends.

LONGLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTIONPeter's mother is dying. Born in England and having spent most of her adult life as a doctor in Zimbabwe, she now lies on a hospital bed in the partitioned living room of his sister's London apartment, her accent having overnight become posher than the Queen's. Unsentimental, fiercely stubborn and at times hilarious, she finally drops her guard, losing all fear of conflict to become the family provocateur.While confronting the revelations of what his family was - and wasn't - and the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them, Peter also mourns the ending of his long marriage. At this point of rupture and healing, Peter reflects on his family's legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home.In Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars, Peter Godwin considers, with both tenderness and candour, the life of émigrés, exiles and refugees, and grieves the many losses that make life both magnificent and unbearable. He brings us into the spaces which make us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own wounds.

This book offers practical strategies for all library and information practitioners and policy makers with responsibility for developing and delivering information literacy programmes to their users. This new book picks up where the best-selling Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 left off. In the last three years the information environment has changed dramatically, becoming increasingly dominated by the social and the mobile. This new book asks where we are now, what is the same and what has changed, and, most crucially, how do we as information professionals respond to the new information literacy and become a central part of the revolution itself? The book is divided into three distinct sections. Part 1 explores the most recent trends in technology, consumption and literacy, while Part 2 is a resource bank of international case studies that demonstrate the key trends and their effect on information literacy and offer innovative ideas to put into practice. Part 3 assesses the impact of these changes on librarians and what skills and knowledge they must acquire to evolve alongside their users. Some of the key topics covered are:the evolution of ‘online’ into the social web as mainstream the use of social media tools in information literacythe impact of mobile devices on information literacy delivery shifting literacies, such as metaliteracy, transliteracy and media literacy, and their effect on information literacy. Readership: This is essential reading for all library and information practitioners and policy makers with responsibility for developing and delivering information literacy programmes to their users. It will also be of great interest to students of library and information studies particularly for modules relating to literacy, information behaviour and digital technologies.

Web 2.0 technologies have been seen by many information professionals as critical to the future development of library services. This has led to the use of the term Library 2.0 to denote the kind of service that is envisaged. There has been considerable debate about what Library 2.0 might encompass, but, in the context of information literacy, it can be described as the application of interactive, collaborative, and multimedia technologies to web-based library services and collections. These developments challenge librarians involved in information literacy with more complex and diverse web content, a range of exciting new tools with which to teach, and a steep learning curve to adjust to the constant change of the Web 2.0 world. This edited collection from an international team of experts provides a practically-based overview of emerging Library 2.0 tools and technologies for information literacy practitioners; addresses the impact of the adoption of these technologies on information literacy teaching; provides case study exemplars for practitioners to help inform their practice; and examines the implications of Library 2.0 for the training of information literacy professionals. Key topics include:

School Library 2.0: new skills and knowledge for the future information literacy, Web 2.0 and public libraries the blog as an assessment tool using Wikipedia to eavesdrop on the scholarly conversation information literacy and RSS feeds library instruction on the go: podcasting sparking Flickrs of insight into controlled vocabularies and subject searching joining the YouTube conversation to teach information literacy going beyond Google teaching information literacy through digital games.

Readership: This book will be essential reading for all library and information practitioners and policy makers with responsibility for developing and delivering information literacy programmes to their users. It will also be of great interest to students of library and information studies.