Yvonne Vera (born 1964), one of Africa's most esteemed writers, has been showered with awards and her work has landed on feminist and African studies curriculums at universities across the world. Vera was born and raised against the backdrop of faltering colonialism and vicious guerilla warfare in 1970's Rhodesia, Southern Africa. Her childhood was spent watching men go off to war, many never to return, and watching women struggle to survive in a society where being a woman meant being a second-class citizen at best, ignored and abused at worst. Vera was just 15 when the guerilla armies triumphed over the colonialists, and Zimbabwe, declaring its independence, was born.

As Vera finished her secondary studies, Zimbabwe was fitfully learning how to be a post-colonial nation. Though the country's white oppressors had been shaken off and black men were enjoying new freedoms, black women were learning that freedom would not yet...