Nervous Conditions - Reception

Reception

Nervous Conditions has mostly received positive reviews, making it a prominent African-literature novel. The African Book Club recommends Nervous Conditions, claiming Dangarembga’s work to be, “a thought-provoking novel that packs a huge number of complicated ideas into a simple and engaging story.” Nervous Conditions was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989, and has since been translated into a number of languages. It has been praised both within and outside of Africa as a prominent contribution and advocate of African feminism and post-colonialism. Within the diverse tradition of African and Black women’s writing, it is Nervous Conditions that best represents the extent to which emancipation and justice remains a constant possibility. The novel has been described as an “absorbing page-turner” by The Bloomsbury Review, “another example of a bold new national literature” by the African Times and “a unique and valuable book” by Booklist. Finally, Pauline Uwakweh describes how Nervous Conditions emphasizes that “ as parallel themes to patriarchal dominance because both are doubtless inter-related forms of dominance over a subordinate social group. Dangarembga has, indeed, demonstrated a keen knowledge of the problems of her society in particular, and Africa in general. Her vision as a writer stresses that awareness and courage are the blueprint to exploding its contradictions”. Overall, Nervous Conditions is recognized as a major literary contribution to African feminism and postcolonial literature.