Growing up in Rhodesia in the 1960s, Peter Godwin inhabited a magical and frightening world of leopard-hunting, lepers, witch doctors, snakes and forest fires. As an adolescent, a conscripted boy-soldier caught in the middle of a vicious civil war, and then as an adult who returned to Zimbabwe as a journalist to cover the bloody transition to majority black rule, he discovered a land stalked by death and danger. 'The life of the white boys and girls in colonial Africa has vanished now, but this fine and powerful memoir is a marvellous contribution to its literature' William Boyd, "Sunday Times" 'His memoir of those terrible years is a vivdly scary adventure story, as well as a poignant portrait of a bitter moral dilemma...superb' Graham Lord, "Daily Telegraph" 'I have no hesitation in saying that Mr Godwin's book is a classic' Anthony Daniels, "Sunday Telegraph" 'Remarkable' Doris Lessing, "Observer"