Purchasing both The Horns and Beloved African together, online.

THE HORNS: PART ONE of the ZAMBEZI TRILOGY - brings to life the early history of Matabeleland and Southern Rhodesia through the increasingly divergent paths of four childhood friends. Jabu son of an eminent Ndebele Chief; Themba discovering his Tswana past as a slave to the Ndebele; Prune, his mother dying in childbirth and his adoption by the clinic nurse and orderly; Carol daughter of a Native Commissioner in Nyamandhlovu – all of them living in the heartland of Matebele history. 

Extensive historical research and appendices, from Colonial archives to the hunt for King Lobengula’s grave and the words of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in November 1965, underpin the fact and the fiction in the lives of these four characters as they move into adulthood.  This first book in the Zambezi Trilogy, THE HORNS, covers the period from 1840 to early 1966. 

BELOVED AFRICAN is the story of John Hammond, born in Plumtree in 1910, 20 years after colonial settlement of Southern Rhodesia in 1890. He was a man destined to become a legend in the history of African education. Appointed as headmaster to Tjolotjo School at the age of 26, within only a few years, virulent tertian malignant malaria and exponential growth in demand for pupil entry, became key factors in deciding to move this agricultural and technically based school to Mzingwane.

The story is, as told to his daughter and author Jill Baker, through the perceptive, courageous, but anxious eyes. of his English born wife Nancy. Her light, love and hilarious observations are a wonderful counterpoint to the difficulties - and extraordinary achievements - of the staff, pupils and John himself as they tried desperately to educate enough young Africans to be able to run the country.

John Hammond felt the greatest tragedy which was stated to the end of his life “we needed one more educated generation to give them a chance to run it well”