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Call of the Litany Bird: Surviving the Zimbabwe Bush War
Susan Gibbs
Publisher: Loose Chippings Books (2011)
Hardback - 272 pages, 16 pages of photographs
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"Don't get killed on the way home" - these words, uttered by a 5-year-old girl in Zimbabwe, were what first made her mother realise that her children regarded their friends being killed as normal. Eventually Susan Gibbs brought her family to England and she has now recorded her experiences in a deeply moving book about her struggle to bring up a family on a farm whilst living through the harrowing times as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. As a trained nurse, newly married to the son of the Governor of Rhodesia during the UDI years, Susan found herself at the centre of an area of dissident activity which was met by extremely violent reprisals from Robert Mugabe's North Korean trained Praetorian Guard. Susan writes compellingly about life on their farm in Matabeleland in the midst of the unfolding terror and growing number of atrocities.Above all it is a human story. Sometimes shocking and always moving, there is also warmth and humour as Susan creates a gripping picture of the conflict and tells of her family's survival when many of her friends and neighbouring farmers didn't. The book is a testament to the courage displayed by so many people who were tested day after day by almost unimaginable horrors. First-time authors are two-a-penny but not many have lived through a guerilla war, and fewer still have the ability to tell their story convincingly in a gripping style.Call Of The Litany Bird has already been praised by two former Foreign Secretaries, with Lord Carrington writing the Foreword and Lord Hurd describing it as 'deeply moving.' It is a book which will appeal not only to readers interested in the history of this African country and who wish to understand its current politics, but also anyone who is drawn to one woman's story of a family's struggle in unique circumstances.
