The book, based on Barrosos own experiences, offers a searching and emotive examination of the private and public turmoil experienced by both black and white communities during the former British colonys difficult transformation into modern-day Zimbabwe.
Jayne Cameron and her family live in a remote mountain community where they work side by side with the black workers on their farm, cultivating the land. Jaynes closest childhood friend is a young black boy called Enoch, with whom she shares the innocence of youth; thankfully she is relatively sheltered from the post-colonial, racial disquiet that is slowly engulfing the country.
However, the Camerons suffer a petrifying attack on their home and land, the family is forced to seek safety in the city a move which triggers a terrible chain of events which will culminate in the tragic death of her young sister. Jayne is forced to live out her formative teenage years against this backdrop of conflict and social instability, not only enduring her sisters death but the disintegration of her parents marriage and the introduction of many new influential friendships.
Barrosos depiction of Jayne Cameron and her colonial family at the outbreak of civil war in 1970s Zimbabwe draws on her first-hand experience of the nation during its difficult birth. Her treatment of the universal themes of love, loss and redemption through the eyes of a young girl on the cusp adulthood is compelling, and her exploration of Zimbabwes land ownership struggles highlight an on-going source of tension.
Born in the late 1960s to bohemian parents, Barroso lived a glamorous if unconventional childhood, moving to and from Europe before settling back in Africa at the age of four. Scouted as a model in her teens she forged a successful career in Cape Town, London and Tokyo before deciding to settle in London. The book is available from www.troubador.co.uk or www.amazon.co.uk
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