When Owen Sheers discovers a book in his father’s study, he stumbles upon the life of an obscure relative, Arthur Shirley Cripps, a lyric poet and maverick missionary to Rhodesia.

Compelled by the description of Cripp’s extraordinary life in Africa, Sheers embarks on a journey through contemporary Zimbabwe in an attempt to better understand his ancestor’s devotion to the country and its people and the dramatic, often bloody, differences that echo across the years.

The great achievement of The Dust Diaries is to resurrect the time and the people who lived in Britain and the Empire, and sheers dutifully follows their stories up to the present. He provides a satisfying end to an often beautiful book by telling us not just how the characters in the story end up, but also their children, and the country itself. Times Literary Supplement.

This is a slow-burning, mesmerizing book that snags the heart with a telling detail or murmured regret then opens its gaze to reveal a wider, bolder view of time and pace and history, like a camera lens taking in a shimmering veld. Independent on Sunday.

AVAILABLE NOW FROM WEAVER PRESS, Harare.