Books Rhodesia forbade my parents to read
I became a prodigious reader from a very young age because my mother was one. For many years she worked in a hospital as an administrator and used to buy at least two paperbacks a week. Reading, therefore, had an integral part in our family as a source of enjoyment. But I have always wondered what it was like to be young and black growing up in a racist Rhodesia?
My knowledge of the black experience in Rhodesia comes mainly from reading the early writings of Dambudzo Marechera, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Charles Mungoshi, Shimmer Chinodya, Stanley Nyamfukudza, Wilson Katiyo, Yvonne Vera etc.
In Rhodesia black people were supposed to read only what they were officially allowed. They saw and heard on radio and TV only what the white colonial government wanted them to know. There was a massive brainwashing campaign to maintain the status quo. While most of black Africa was going through a wave of decolonization, Rhodesia remained in a chokehold by a stubborn group of whites.
I have been re-reading Julie Frederikse’s None but Ourselves: Masses vs Media in the Making of Zimbabwe and never stopped being intrigued by a list of books that were once banned in Rhodesia between 1959 and 1979, books that my parents were not allowed to read as young black people in Rhodesia for whatever reasons.
The Gospel According to the Ghetto — Canaan Banana
Trout Fishing in America — Richard Brautigan
Black Power — Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton
The Joy of Sex — Alex Comfort, MD
Confessions of a Babysitter — Rosie Dixon
Black Skins, White Masks — Frantz Fanon
The Rolling Stone Rock ‘n Roll Reader — Ben Fong-Torres
Marxism in the 20th Century — Roger Garauda
The Blacks: A Clown Show — Jean Genet
The Female Eunuch — Germaine Greer
Bolivian Diary — Ernesto (‘Che’) Guevara
The Communists and Chinese Peasant Rebellion — James Harrison
Three Negro Plays — Langston Hughes, Leroi Jones and Lorraine Hansberry
Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson — George Jackson
Visions of Cody — Jack Kerouac
The Painted Bird — Jerzy Kozinski
An African Bourgeoisie — Leo Kuper
Nine African Stories — Doris Lessing
Why Are We in Vietnam? — Norman Mailer
No Easy Walk to Freedom — Nelson Mandela
The Black Panthers — Gene Marine
The Fight for Zimbabwe: The Armed Conflict in Southern Africa since UDI — Kees Maxey
South Africa: The Peasants’ Revolt — Govan Mbeki
Jack the Bear — Dan McCall
Black Spring — Henry Miller
Sexual Politics — Kate Millet
Rhodesia: The Struggle for a Birthright — Eshmael Mlambo
The Struggle for Mozambique — Eduardo Mondlane
Coming of the Dry Season — Charles Mungoshi
Rhodesian Black Behind Bars — Didymus Mutasa
Zimbabwe — Solomon Mutswairo
Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare — Abdul Haris Nasution
Class Struggle in Africa — Kwame Nkurumah
Kiss me Goodnight, Sergeant Major: The Songs and Ballads of World War II — Martin Page (editor)
Black Fire! — Michael Raeburn
Everything you always wanted to know about Sex — David R Reuben, MD
The Adventurers — Harold Robbins
Black Gold — Clint Rockman
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa — Walter Rodney
Portnoy’s Complaint — Philip Roth
Origins of Rhodesia — Stanlake Samkange
Black Orpheus — Jean-Paul Sartre
The Political Thoughts of Mao Tse-Tung — Stuart R Schram
History of Torture Throughout the Ages — George Ryley Scott
Crisis in Rhodesia — Nathan Shamuyarira
Women Without Men — Jessica Simmons
War of the Flea — Robert Taber
The University and Revolution — Gary R. Weaver and James H. Weaver (editors)
The Rhodesian Problem: A Documentary Record 1923–1973 — Elaine Windrich
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test — Tom Wolfe
The Black Death — Philip Ziegler
