The Uncertainty of Hope By Valerie Tagwira (Weaver Press)

I STARTED reading The Uncertainty of Hope the day MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced he was pulling out of Zimbabwe’s recent runoff elections. I finished it the day Zanu-PF’s Robert Mugabe was sworn in to his sixth term as president.

It was an apt time to read a novel set in Zimbabwe. Valerie Tagwira writes about the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans in 2005, at the time of Operation Murambatsvina, the government’s urban clearance programme. Although the action takes place three years ago , we know that conditions have only deteriorated in Zimbabwe.

The Uncertainty of Hope is a quite an understated read. Tagwira writes beautiful, lucid prose, and she presents her characters without attempting to influence the reader to feel one way or the other about them.

From the prostitute who loses her shack and later dies of Aids, to the good husband and father who has to resort to illegal dealings simply to make a good living and support his liberal, university educated daughter, the characters’ lives are loosely interwoven in ways that become apparent later.

I enjoyed this book very much. I dislike hysterical prose, and appreciated the fact that Tagwira treated her subjects with compassion without making them weepy and whiney. Instead, their resilience in the face of overwhelming hardship engenders only respect for ordinary Zimbabweans.

I’ve read a number of fiction books that describe life in Zimbabwe – Peter Godwin’s When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and, the modern classic , Tstitsi Dangaremba’s Nervous Conditions – and all three share a different slant on different times and perspectives from Zimbabwe’s people.

The Uncertainty of Hope, winner of the 2008 National Arts Merit Award, stands proudly among these books.

I now have faces and people in my mind’s eye when I read another dry news report about Zimbabwe. — Taralyn Bro

Devil May Care, By Sebastian Faulks (Penguin)

CONFESSION time. I am a Bond fan. I’ve seen all the movies and read all of Ian Fleming’s original novels so I held my breath when I opened the covers of ‘Devil May Care’.

Phew! You’ll be glad to know Bond lives on in style. Faulks – who has Fleming’s writing voice down pat – gives him a slightly darker treatment than Fleming ever did. His misogyny harks back to Sean Connery’s Bond and all the old 007 trappings are there: flash cars, Savile Row suits, an evil genius and a foxy babe.

I won’t tell you the plot because you know it already: Bond meets bad guy, bad guy donners Bond, Bond donners bad guy and beds gal.

Formulaic, I know, but still as fun as ever. — Andrew Trench

Moxyland, By Lauren Beukes (Jacana Media)

WELCOME to Moxyland! It’s Cape Town in the year 2018. The biggest difference? You’re at a loss if you don’t own a cellphone. All money for all purchases, even from street vendors, is taken directly off your cell. If you cause any trouble, the police will disconnect you for 24 hours. Add to this an interesting mix of characters – Tendeka, an activist, Toby, who is obsessed with recording everything for his blog, and art school dropout Kendra – and you have an unusual plot.

Beukes also conjures up some street slang in this debut novel that will have fans begging for a second novel. — Nicolette Scrooby