In her narrative, Sithole tells how her late husband, Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, created the Zimbabwe African National Union Party (ZANU) in 1963 in opposition to Smith?s administration, but later lost control of it to Robert Mugabe. Her book is largely characterized by rancor for Mugabe ? a man she has known for decades since they met in exile in the 1960?s.
?I left my career as a nurse to fight the white supremacists. I was harassed and imprisoned by the Rhodesian forces and later by my own people,? Sithole reflects.
She penned her memoir in her home in Maryland, in the United States, where she now lives in exile ? once again, having originally fled Rhodesia in the 1960?s for Tanzania, where she was part of the resistance against white supremacy in her homeland.
?In 1980, we thought that freedom had arrived for all Zimbabweans. But it was Mugabe who ended up persecuting myself and my husband, because he saw as a political threat,? Sithole says.
The Smith administration imprisoned her husband and Mugabe in 1964, and only released them a decade later.
?In my book, I want to tell the world about the thousands of people ? including my husband ? who fought for freedom for Zimbabwe, but never got any recognition for it. We sacrificed our lives for Zimbabwe ? a Zimbabwe that to this day is not free from tyranny. I am not free to return to the Zimbabwe I love. I am regarded by Mugabe as an enemy of the state.?
The love Sithole still has for her husband, who died in 2000, shines through the book. ?My Life?.? is therefore part political intrigue, part love story, and part lament for the Zimbabwe of today: A country in economic chaos, with the highest inflation rate in the world, mass poverty and the negation of political freedoms that Sithole says she, her husband ? and even Mugabe himself ? once fought so hard to secure.
?It?s a tragedy,? she says.
Sithole, despite finding herself in exile in America, is in a unique position to comment on Zimbabwe?s past.
In addition to the years she spent in exile helping to accelerate the eventual downfall of the Smith administration, she was present at all the major negotiations between the Rhodesian authorities, the British government and the liberation movements that led to Zimbabwe?s independence.
But her book also describes her impoverished childhood in a township in Rhodesia?s eastern highlands, and her political awakening as a young nurse in Bulawayo, when she began attending meetings held by activists.
After the Rhodesian government banned ZANU, Sithole jumped at the chance to join the movement in exile.
?I left the country in secret. No one knew where I had gone, not even my mother,? she recalls.
In the book, she writes about the ?dangerous and uncertain? cross-border journey she was forced to undertake in order to contribute to freedom for her people. A ZANU agent accompanied her on a bus to a post at Rhodesia?s border with Zambia.
?I didn?t know what was going on. I was totally confused. We had no passports. We waited at a fishing village near the border. When night fell, I was taken to the Zambezi River?. Later in the night, we crossed, through little boats. I was scared to death. I couldn?t imagine traveling on that river. I had gone to school, I knew about the Zambezi River. I knew about all the crocodiles and the hippopotamus along that river. It was just frightening!? Sithole exclaims.
?God was with us, and we managed to cross, and as the years would go on I would realize that sometimes it is people you should be afraid of, not animals!? she quips.
Eventually she reached the Zambian capital of Lusaka, where other Zimbabweans were waiting to be transported to guerilla bases in Tanzania.
?We were all packed in like sardines in those trucks. Then we traveled through Zaire. It was such a long journey, the longest and strangest and most painful of my life?. We met different kinds of people. And we didn?t understand any language. For me it was just so strange. I was thinking: If the end comes for me here, no one will ever find my body,? says Sithole.
But the intrepid band of freedom fighters later reached Dar es Salaam.
The book, however, is dominated by reflections on her husband.
?Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole was a freedom fighter, through and through. He believed that people should be free in their homelands, and that no tribe should be made the elite ahead of another.?