Where We Have Hope: A Memoir of Zimbabwe

by Andrew Meldrum

Overview

Where We Have Hope is the gripping memoir of a young American journalist. In 1980, Andrew Meldrum arrived in a Zimbabwe flush with new independence, and he fell in love with the country and its optimism. But over the twenty years he lived there, Meldrum watched as President Robert Mugabe consolidated power and the government evolved into despotism. In May 2003, Meldrum, the last foreign journalist still working in the dangerous and chaotic nation, was illegally forced to leave his adopted home. His unflinching work describes the terror and intimidation Mugabe’s government exercised on both the press and citizens, and the resiliency of Zimbabweans determined to overturn Mugabe and demand the free society they were promised.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802142511
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/18/2006
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

Journalist Meldrum was in Rhodesia to cover its 1980 decolonization for the Guardian and stayed on to watch the country's agonizing transformation into a horrific kleptocracy. The book opens with Meldrum's 2003 expulsion from the country that had become Zimbabwe; he'd butted heads with Mugabe's regime for 20-plus years, during which time he wrote a spate of articles exposing various facets of the president's murderous, corrupt regime. In this defiant, courageous memoir, Meldrum, an American, also details black aggression against the bigoted white minority, who treat the nation's "ordinary Zimbabweans" disgracefully. He examines Mugabe's ghastly massacres and all-too-familiar tactics of targeting gays, intellectuals, political foes and the press. He witnesses food riots, fuel shortages, poverty, inflation (at 350% and rising) as well as a family friend's son's death from AIDS -and simply yet powerfully shows how these issues affected everyday people's lives. Despite all he has seen, Meldrum remains hopeful, and this frank account is the better for it. Photos. Agent, Briar Silich. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The remarkable odyssey of a reporter's attempt to cover the news and stay alive during a country's descent into ruin. American journalist Meldrum arrived in Zimbabwe in 1980 as a reporter for the British newspaper The Guardian, enthused with the assignment of reporting from the newly independent nation that had only recently emerged from years of white domination as Rhodesia. He left in 2003, physically expelled by the government of Robert Mugabe, in defiance of its own judiciary. At the time of his expulsion, he was the last foreign journalist reporting from a country that had suffered from two decades of Mugabe's tyranny and corruption. Meldrum's memoir of his Zimbabwe years is a harrowing and deeply disturbing record of that country's downward spiral as the basic tenets of civilized society were ripped asunder: the repression of Zimbabwe's once-free press, violent attacks against political opposition, the destruction of the national economy amid blatant mismanagement, the rise of a thuggish military elite to maintain dictatorial order, and divide-and-conquer policies that fostered racial and tribal animosity, with horrific results. Meldrum's ability to stay alive and focused during this period is a tribute to his indefatigable spirit, and his crisp narrative is remarkably free of rancor toward those who wreaked havoc around him. Even more amazing were the many courageous opponents of the Mugabe regime who faced harassment, police assault, and imprisonment for daring voice their disgust with the deterioration of Zimbabwe. Their voices, while censored at home, speak loud and clear through Meldrum's reporting, though their criticism meets only the virtual silence and inaction of theUnited Nations, various American and European governments and neighboring African nations. For his expulsion, Meldrum emerged from imprisonment and trial and was charged with being a threat to national security. That he left Zimbabwe alive is itself something of a miracle. A compelling and, ultimately, heartbreaking story that demands to be read by anyone concerned about contemporary Africa.

Kirkus Reviews