Butterfly Burning

An intensely bittersweet love story “depicting with extraordinary elegance” life in British-ruled Zimbabwe in the 1940s (The Village Voice).

When Fumbatha, a construction worker, meets the much younger Phephelaphi, he “wants her like the land beneath his feet from which birth had severed him.” He in turn fills her “with hope larger than memory.” But Phephelaphi is not satisfied with their “one-room” love alone. The qualities that drew Fumbatha to her, her sense of independence and freedom, end up separating them. And the closely woven fabric of township life, where everyone knows everyone else, has a mesh too tight and too intricate to allow her to escape her circumstances on her own.

Vera exploits language to peel away the skin of public and private lives. In Butterfly Burning she captures the ebullience and the bitterness of township life, as well as the strength and courage of her unforgettable heroine.

“Mesmerizing.” —Publishers Weekly

“A rare work of beauty. . . . Readers of Isabel Allende, A.S. Byatt, or Toni Morrison will all enjoy this introduction to fine African literature.” —Library Journal