Exit Wounds

Peter's mother is dying. Born in England and having spent most of her adult life as a doctor in Zimbabwe, she now lies on a hospital bed in the partitioned living room of his sister's London apartment, her accent having overnight become posher than the Queen's. Unsentimental, fiercely stubborn and at times hilarious, she finally drops her guard, losing all fear of conflict to become the family provocateur.

While confronting the revelations of what his family was - and wasn't - and the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them, Peter also mourns the ending of his long marriage. At this point of rupture and healing, Peter reflects on his family's legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home.

In Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars, Peter Godwin considers, with both tenderness and candour, the life of émigrés, exiles and refugees, and grieves the many losses that make life both magnificent and unbearable. He brings us into the spaces which make us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own wounds.

'Praise for Mukiwa: The life of the white boys and girls in colonial Africa has vanished now, but this fine and powerful memoir is a marvellous contribution to its literature' - WILLIAM BOYD

'Remarkable' - DORIS LESSING

'Praise for The Fear: The Fear is an important book . . . Godwin is passionate and personal, as well as bold in his travel and scrupulous in his documentation' - PAUL THEROUX

'The Fear is an urgent and essential book . . . it makes for relentlessly gripping reading' - PHILIP GOUREVITCH

'A feat of fearless reporting, this shattering story is not only an expose of the horrors of political violence, but a testament to the astonishing courage of ordinary citizens in the face of evil' - MELANIE THERNSTROM

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Peter Godwin was born and raised in Zimbabwe. He is the author of six non-fiction books including Mukiwa, which received the George Orwell Prize and the Esquire-Apple-Waterstones award, and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, which won the Borders Original Voices Award. His book The Fear was selected by the New Yorker as a best book of the year. He has taught writing at Wesleyan and Columbia, and served as President of the PEN American Center. He is an Orwell fellow and a Guggenheim fellow. He lives in New York City.

@petergodwin

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