Parched Earth is the story of a young Tanzanian teacher navigating love, sex, and marriage; trying to identify what it means to be a woman in a society built around very traditional gender roles. The daughter of a single mother whose iron discipline keeps her poverty-stricken family alive, Doreen falls deeply in love – and in lust – with Martin, a man she meets at a conference for geography teachers. The two get married privately, and the warmth and excitement of their relationship survives the moving in of a sister-in-law, the setting in of a household routine, and the birth of a daughter; but gradually erodes under the pressure of not conceiving a boy, and of conforming to societal expectations around friendship, love, and marriage. And then she meets Joseph, a wealthy retired diplomat whose wife has left him, and who is gradually forging a new life for himself.
Much of the novel is taken up with the exploration of Doreen’s daemon – an expression both of her sexuality and her desire for freedom – and the different problems that both men and women face in a rigidly patriarchal society. But my favourite parts were those in which Doreen explores her own creativity. I loved the joyous descriptions of friendship and artistry growing out of the “River Pebbles Club”, for which young women teachers get together to make classroom decorations and teachers’ aids. Sand, pebbles, and coconut bark are perfect for regional maps; while river stones brushed with lime make an impressive snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro. And later on, the painting sessions at Joseph’s house, dipping her fingers in tins of paint to feel the colours, and gradually losing her fear and learning to wield her brush to convey her impressions of the world.
There is also a lovely and brilliantly delineated sibling relationship between Doreen and her older brother Godbless, who had no schooling and feels trapped in their native village with no prospects, struggling to find his identity as a man living in a woman-headed household.
As far as I can recall, this is the first book I’ve ever read in which a character with my own name appears – the bold, beautiful, intense, and very, very temperamental art teacher. I was quite surprised by how fascinated I was by a minor character who bears almost no resemblance to me simply because of our shared name!
Around the World in 180 Books 