Bitter Eden

Bitter Eden is based on Tatamkhulu Afrika's own capture in North Africa and his experiences as a prisoner-of-war in World War II in Italy and Germany. As gripping as Kiss of the Spider Woman, this frank and beautifully written novel deals with three men who see themselves as 'straight', but who must negotiate the emotions that are brought to the surface by the physical closeness of survival in the male-only camps. The complex rituals of camp life and the strange loyalties and deep bonds between the men are compellingly depicted. Bitter Eden is a tender, bitter, powerful book, of lives inexorably changed and of a war whose ending does not bring peace.