Martha Quest Series – Hold Him Down Zulu Warrior

Martha Quest and the Children of Violence" by Doris Lessing deeply resonated with me.  Set in what was then Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe, it is the story of a young woman before the Second World War, living an unfulfilled existance in colonial Southern Africa. She witnesses the war that exists between her dominating mother and her crippled father who feels that the only real life he experienced was in the trenches with his comrades.  Lessing minutely describes the stifling environment of a small town  where propriety is all important and where the black and white  and English and Afrikaans speaking inhabitants are separated by a gulf of incomprehension.  The story follows Martha as she discovers her sexual and political nature. The series depicts Martha through the years, first in in the farm where she grew up and lastly in a bar where she witnesses the humiliation of a black servant in "Hold Him Down, You Zulu Warrior"