Sunday book pick: In his memoir ‘Exit Wounds’, journalist Peter Godwin probes his dilemma of ‘home’

“Godwin, party of one, a man without a nation, without a tribe.”

In the preface to his memoir, Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss, and Occasional Wars, journalist and writer Peter Godwin states that his is not a “conventional memoir” – its aim is to “reflect [on] the enduring power of memory”. Therefore, it was not unusual for Godwin to begin reflecting on his life through the memories of his mother, Helen. Or Her Grace as her children addressed her. She is 90, quite unwell, but still of indomitable cheer and character. The children are surprised when she suddenly seems to have changed her accent. Happy is now “heppy”, home is “heome”.

A doctor by profession, Her Grace arrived in Rhodesia from England in her twenties and never returned. Even when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and was bitterly embroiled in political and military tension. A white child in an African nation, Peter is fully aware of what this means, the violence that others of his race have inflicted on the natives. Still, his mother’s commitment as a doctor and Peter’s childhood in Zimbabwe made him as “native” to the land as anyone else there. In Mukiwa, his coming-of-age memoir, Peter writes about being sent to war as…

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