House Of Stone
The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe



Harper Collins
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Blue mountains, golden fields, gin and tonics on the terrace…once it had seemed the most idyllic place on earth. But, by August 2002, Marondera in eastern Zimbabwe had been turned into a bloody battleground, the centre of a violent campaign of land invasions. So many farms had been seized that the morning roll call to check on the safety of local farmers had been abandoned.

One bright morning, Nigel Hough, one of the few remaining white farmers in the valley, received the news he had been dreading. There was a crowd of war veterans at his gates demanding he hand over his homestead on Mugabe’s orders. When he returned, the mob started a fire and dragged him to an outhouse, waving sticks and shouting ruling party slogans. To his horror, the leader of the invaders was the family’s much-loved nanny Aqui. “Get out or we’ll kill you”, she spat. “There is no place for whites in this country.”

Christina uncovered the astonishing human saga told in House of Stone while travelling back and forth to report clandestinely on Zimbabwe. Her powerful narrative traces the brutal Rhodesian civil war and the hope then despair of the Mugabe years, through the lives of two people she met who find themselves on opposing sides.

House of Stone (‘dzimba dza mabwe’ or ‘Zimbabwe’ in Shona words) is based on a remarkable series of interviews with a white farmer and black nanny. Through them, she tells the story of the last of Britain’s colonies in Africa to become independent and the descent into madness of one of Africa’s most respected nationalist leaders.

Born in the same year, their experience in growing up in a land blessed with sunshine and rich land yet plagued by divisive politics and bloodshed, could not have been more different. While Nigel played cricket for his country and piloted his own plane under Victoria Falls Bridge, Aqui grew up in a mud-and-pole hut sleeping on the floor where the food was cooked with her four brothers and sisters. “They had air conditioners and cars and went shopping in South Africa. We didn’t have food and had to walk an hour each way to fetch water”, she remembers.

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