Letters from Wankie (Friedberg)

Letters from Wankie: A Place in Colonial Africa
Patricia Friedberg, 2013
Rainbow Books
260 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781568251653


Summary
Letters from Wankie is a unique true story based on the collection of some 500 air letters the author, British-born Patricia Friedberg, wrote home to England in the mid-1950s during the first two years of her marriage to her South African physician husband. Together the newlyweds moved to the remote mining town of Wankie in the far northwest corner of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he was employed as a colliery doctor.

More than 50 years later, after her mother passed away, Patricia found among her mother's papers the bundle of air letters she had written home, neatly tied and safely stored. Reading through the collection it was evident the letters contained an incredible historical account if life during the colonial years as seen through the eyes and writings of a young woman twenty years of age who was unbelievably even to herself, employed as Clerk of Court at the Native Commissioners Office.

Despite the enormous cultural differences the young Londoner faced, the challenging and often shocking exposure to tribal practices and native law, she carried on overcoming obstacles with spunk and grit and a saving sense of humor. (From the publisher.)