Exit Wounds A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars

LONGLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION

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.

LONGLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION

‘Masterful’ DAVE EGGERS
‘Unforgettable’ MAGGIE SMITH
‘Profound’ CLAIRE MESSUD
‘Will leave you breathless’ AMINATTA FORMA

When she turned ninety, my mother sprang a final surprise on us. She started speaking in the voice of a stranger.

Peter’s mother is dying. 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 reflects on his family’s legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home. He makes us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own wounds.

LONGLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION

‘Masterful’ DAVE EGGERS
‘Unforgettable’ MAGGIE SMITH
‘Profound’ CLAIRE MESSUD
‘Will leave you breathless’ AMINATTA FORMA

When she turned ninety, my mother sprang a final surprise on us. She started speaking in the voice of a stranger.

Peter’s mother is dying. 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 reflects on his family’s legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home. He makes us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own wounds.

LONGLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION

‘Masterful’ DAVE EGGERS
‘Unforgettable’ MAGGIE SMITH
‘Profound’ CLAIRE MESSUD
‘Will leave you breathless’ AMINATTA FORMA

When she turned ninety, my mother sprang a final surprise on us. She started speaking in the voice of a stranger.

Peter’s mother is dying. 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 reflects on his family’s legacy of exile and their tenuous hold on home. He makes us question, suffer and celebrate the relationships we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own 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 house, her accent having overnight become posher than the Queen’s.

Peter has spent his life missing his Zimbabwean childhood, a longing that does not diminish as he reflects on being a conscript in the Rhodesian army in the 1970s, writing about conflicts across the African continent and beyond or settling in New York with his English wife and transatlantic children. In his mother’s final months, he must come to terms with everything his family was – and wasn’t: the secrets they kept from one another, the stoicism that sometimes threatened to destroy them and the beauty of the wildly different places they called home.

In Exit Wounds, Peter Godwin considers the life of émigrés, exiles and refugees, and grieves the many losses that make life both magnificent and unbearable. With generations of history behind him, he brings us into the spaces which make us question, suffer and celebrate the lives we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own scars.