Allen & Unwin The Dust Diaries book English Paperback 336 pages

The captivating and emotional true tale of a journey through doomed love, personal discovery and the tragic story of colonial Zimbabwe. A few years ago, Owen Sheers stumbled upon a dusty book in his father's study by the extraordinary Arthur Cripps, part-time lyric poet and full-time unorthodox missionary, who served in Rhodesia for fifty years from 1902. Sheers' discovery prompts a quest, into colonial Africa at the turn of the century, by way of war, a doomed love affair and friction with the ruling authorities. His personal journey into the contemporary heart of darkness that is Mugabe's Zimbabwe finds more than Cripps' legacy - Sheers finds a land characterised by terror and fear, and blighted by the land reform policies that Cripps himself anticipated.