Hayden Eastwood chatted to Polity SA about his new book, Like Sodium in Water, a memoir of post-independence Zimbabwe and the atmosphere of nostalgia that hangs over much of Harare’s remaining white community.

Eastwood says the title sprung into his mind while he recalled his time in senior school.

‘I felt adolescence was perhaps a bit like the reaction of sodium in water, which is to say explosive.

‘You throw the sodium in and it fizzes and froths, hydrogen gets liberated and quite often that combusts, it just explodes, and then after it’s reacted you just get this calm. I felt that period of my life was like that, and in many ways some of my relationships were like that.’

Watch the interview:

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Hayden Eastwood Jonathan Ball Publishers Like Sodium in Water Polity SA Videos