When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a memoir by Peter Godwin, a white African born and raised in Zimbabwe, who frequently returns as an adult to visit his aging, retired parents in his home country. The book is a revealing portrait of Godwin's travel, but his experience writing as a journalist gives the book an added edge. With each chapter structured as a separate trip back to Zimbabwe, Godwin uncovers the decline of the nation after its independence and its descent from a promising country to a place of corruption and poverty under President Robert Mugabe. Published in 2006, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a continuation of Mukiwa, Godwin's memoir about his childhood memories.

As the book opens, Godwin receives a phone call from his aging mother. He learns that his father's heart is failing, and he is in the hospital. The doctors believe that he is going to die soon; there is little chance for recovery. Though his father eventually recovers, Godwin decides to visit his parents, which becomes the first in a series of ten trips taken over the last eight years of his father's life. Spaning from 1996 to 2004, the memoir follows both Godwin's aging and declining parents, and the decline of his native country. Each chapter follows one of these ten trips, eventually revealing a family secret that changes the way Godwin sees his entire life.

Many of the chapters in When a Crocodile Eats the Sun are rooted in travel stories. Godwin writes about long flights and the difficulties of getting in and out of the troubled nation, as well as reporting on the daily lives of people he knows and his own parents. During this period, Godwin is forced to come to terms with the rapid decline of his home country. Although in the 1980s, when it first became independent, Zimbabwe was considered one of the most self-sufficient and successful nations in Africa; by the mid-1990s when Godwin visits, the quality of life in Zimbabwe is horrific. A nation that was once shipping grain to surrounding countries now can't feed its own citizens, medical services are disappearing, and international conflict and a lack of British intervention have allowed corrupt police forces and gangs of thugs to lay siege on the land. By 1994, Zimbabwe has one of the worst quality of life indexes in the world, and 40 percent of the population is HIV positive. The life expectancy of the average citizen dropped thirty years in only a decade, from the mid-sixties to only thirty years old.



Godwin gets into some of the politics that led to this horrific decline, describing the impact it has on his aging parents, who no longer feel safe in their home. His parents' neighbors are being murdered by gangs of thugs, the police force condoning their behavior. The trouble began with President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's only leader during this period, who effectively became a dictator after Zimbabwean independence. A crisis around land redistribution leads the British to step back from their original position as underwriters in the fledgling nation, causing riots, sieges, and mass murder. Motivated by fear for their own lives and corruption, nobody in power does anything to stop the violent mess.

As he watches his father and mother live under siege during this period, visiting friends of those who have been killed and trying to support his aging parents, Godwin learns a family secret. His father, who speaks with a British accent and whom Godwin had always been told was a British national come to Zimbabwe to fight for independence, has a different history altogether. In reality, Godwin's father was fleeing a ghetto in Warsaw when he came to Zimbabwe. As a Polish Jew, he feared for his life under the Nazis. Shocked and sobered by this revelation, Godwin begins to feel for his father, who now is ending his life in the same political turmoil that he had fled all those decades ago.

Ultimately, the memoir is about both Zimbabwe and its political legacy during this period, Godwin's own family legacy, and the lasting impact of politics on individual lives.



Peter Godwin is a journalist, author, documentary filmmaker, and former human rights activist and lawyer. He was born in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, and now lives in New York City with his wife. He has written a number of books, including three works of non-fiction on his native country: Mukiwa, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, and The Fear. He also wrote and produced a film called Industry of Death on the sex industry in Thailand. He has reported from more than sixty countries, serving as a foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times.