Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm

Description

In 1978, in the final, bloodiest phase of Rhodesia's struggle to become Zimbabwe, eleven-year-old Lauren St John moves with her family to a wild, beautiful farm on the banks of a slow-flowing river. The house was the scene of a horrific guerrilla attack and settling there changes Lauren's life irrevocably. RAINBOW'S END captures the overwhelming beauty and extraordinary danger of life in the African bush. Lauren's childhood reads like a girl's own adventure story as, at the height of the war, she rides through the wilderness on her horse, Morning Star, encountering lions, crocodiles, vicious ostriches and mad cows. Yet the greatest threat is the ruthless guerrillas who prowl the land, making each day more dangerous, vivid and prized than the last.

Lauren St John was born in Gatooma, Rhodesia, now Kadoma, Zimbabwe, in December 1966. After studying journalism in Africa, she moved to London, where she was for many years the golf correspondent for The Sunday Times. She is the author of several books on sports, a biography of country rocker Steve Earle and the children's novels The White Giraffe and The Last Leopard.

The starkly honest memoirs of a white Rhodesian forced to face up to the racist, violent truth of her society. St John's disarming frankness triumphs. - Financial Times Highly evocative, beautifully written, a world of striking colours, a tapestry of innocence, while the brutal reality of life encroaches into the travesty which is now modern Zimbabwe. - Daily Express Precise, evocative and funny. Even as the Smith regime crumbles, as Mugabe waits to exact revenge and you know disillusionment is going to follow, you are irresistibly drawn into this personal story. A fine book. - Justin Cartwright, Daily Mail