This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga

I read this because it was long listed for the Booker Prize and my library had it.  These have been interesting times in my reading career, having been unable to enter a library to browse since February.  So what is on the shelves, what I can put a hold on, has become a key in my choices.

This is a book that is in a way a sequel, but separated by many years.  The young Tambu who was a young girl growing up in British occupied Rhodesia in the author's first book is now a woman in her late 30's struggling to survive in Zimbabwe.  As the novel opens, she is being pushed out of a hostel for young women by the matron because she has aged out. It was a sheltered place in which young women find their wings, but now she must be nudged into precarious flight.

Her uncertain journey takes place in the city of Harare, in late 1990s Zimbabwe, when the young country was also beginning to flounder with corruption.  Educated but unemployed, Tambu sees other women as adversaries in a game of success she cannot win.  She is focused on the wrong enemy from start to finish, no matter what she does.  It is heartbreaking and familiar.