James Kilgore’s: We Are All Zimbabweans
Title: We Are All Zimbabweans, 2011, http://www.amazon.com/We-Are-All-Zimbabweans-Now/dp/0821419854/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326112851&sr=1-1
Author: James Kilgore
Genre: Novel
*Fascinating note: The author of We are All Zimbabweans (2011) has lead a colorful and eventful life. John Kilgore became involved with the infamous Symbionese Liberation Army and fled the United States in 1975 to go underground for 27 years. He lived in Zimbabwe, Australia, and South Africa during this time using the pseudonym John Pape. He was caught and extradited back to the States in 2002. His incarceration of six and a half years permitted him the time to spawn his first novel…We Are All Zimbabweans.
Synopsis: As readers, we trek with Ben Dabney, a Wisconsin graduate student to follow his dream to Zimbabwe to study and record the assent of democracy under President Mugabe. Young, exuberant Ben departs from his wife and child to embark upon his first trip abroad. He has the support and funding of doctoral advisor and he is anxious to begin this memorable period in his professional life. The readers feel Ben Dabney’s culture clash upon arrival in Zimbabwe. We, too, attempt to override our fears and ethnocentric inclinations and thrust ourselves into the life and times of a nation. We recognize Ben’s awkwardness and distinction as a white man in a black nation. Slowly, Ben makes contacts for us. We meet people, we dine with people and we (too) explore and share the dream of a new democracy. Yet, slowly the muffled, clamoring voices that question the motives and events of the ‘dream’ republic are heard. Finally, the rumpling of dissenting voices becomes louder in Zimbabwe. And dissenting voices are heard from home; Ben’s academic department undergoes a change. The support for his thesis comes into question. We suffer disillusionment with our protagonist. James Kilgore’s lessons become the manuscript for our own study of politics and real life.
Critique: This is one of the most painfully authentic works that I have ever read. The blood and tears of James Kilgore become fabric for a text about the hopes of youth and the reality of the real world. Sensitively, Kilgore creates a main character that we can all bond with. The main character, Ben Dabney, becomes a tragic hero. He is doomed from the start. Yet, the reader empathizes and shares his anguish as his dreams are squashed. I recommend this book to students of Political Science. The dream is often easy to conceptualize. The reality is hard to accept.
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