Abstract
This article argues that one of the challenges white Zimbabwean writers have to deal with in
their narratives is a troubled colonial past. In Peter Godwin’s Mukiwa, A White Boy in Africa,
there is a plain acknowledgement that Rhodesia had problems of legitimacy, which made the
treatment of blacks before and during the war unjustified. Godwin’s rendition of the past is
therefore informed by this recognition, compelling the author to employ narrative strategies
which make it possible for him to embrace certain aspects of the past while simultaneously
distancing himself from others. This analysis of Godwin’s Mukiwa shows how a re-imagined
childhood consciousness enables an understanding of the Rhodesian past. Through this
narrative strategy, Godwin is supposedly faithful in rendering the past, including its
imperfections. Furthermore, the Rhodesian past is depicted as a baneful entity that estranges
whites from the Zimbabwean present.