Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm

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In 1978, in the final, bloodiest phase of the Rhodesian civil war, eleven-year-old Lauren St John moves with her family to Rainbow's End, a wild, beautiful farm and game reserve set on the banks of a slowflowing river. The house has been the scene of a horrific attack by guerrillas, and when Lauren's family settles there, a chain of events is set in motion that will change her life irrevocably.

Rainbow's End captures the overwhelming beauty and extraordinary danger of life in the African bush. Lauren's childhood reads like a girl's own adventure story. At the height of the war, Lauren rides through the wilderness on her horse, Morning Star, encountering lions, crocodiles, snakes, vicious ostriches, and mad cows. Many of the animals are pets, including Miss Piggy and Bacon and an elegant giraffe named Jenny. The constant threat of ruthless guerrillas prowling the land underscores everything, making each day more dangerous, vivid, and prized than the last.

After Independence, Lauren comes to the bitter realization that she'd been on the wrong side of the civil war. While she and her family believed that they were fighting for democracy over Communism, others saw the war as black against white. And when Robert Mugabe comes into power, he oversees the torture and persecution of thousands of members of an opposing tribe and goes on to become one of Africa's legendary dictators. The ending of this beautiful memoir is a fist to the stomach as Lauren realizes that she can be British or American, but she cannot be African. She can love it -- be willing to die for it -- but she cannot claim Africa because she is white.

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She becomes a stronger, more fascinating individual as she matures and starts questioning life. A good memoir takes you inside the place it was written and this memoir did exactly that - inside Rhodesia and inside the writer Lauren St. You feel as if you are there and can feel the night, hear the crickets chirping, the textures of the foods, and smell the grass. The journey for the reader is a powerful one.

I felt like I had been snapped from a happy dream, from a beautiful illusion." The last quarter of the book at times is a painful journey for St. John as she does indeed, question everything she was brought up to believe in. The trouble with having your eyes forcibly opened is that there is no way of closing them again. I'd been brainwashed politically and blind in almost every other way, and I had to reprocess everything from that position.

John does a wonderful job of allowing you to watch her grow. John says towards the end of her memoir ".and concluded my whole life was a lie. John.Rainbow's End has you experiencing the sights, the smells, the sounds that are Rhodesia. As St.

You see her leave the innocence of childhood behind and watch her deal with the reality that is her life and her adulthood. St. From a sheltered young girl living at Rainbow's End to a woman as Rhodesia undergoes a transformation to Zimbabwe.Lauren is a product of her culture and her upbringing and she unflinchingly acknowledges her prejudices.

It is a very personal journey which I am very grateful that the writer was generous enough to share. If you were there then, you will laugh and cry at memories like the snowy black and white TV reception and party line phones; serving in the troopie canteens and hearing the panic in voices over the Agric Alert.I can highly recommend this book. Lauren St John is a very talented writer. Her words flow off the page to evoke a very realistic and authentic account of living on a Rhodesian farm during the bush-war years.

Despite her crushing disillusionment, this is ultimately a book of hope--and when you look at the list of her published books, you realize that she did achieve at least one of her childhood ambitions. We understand the national upheaval as she did, first in a vague outline as her family conflicts are suggested in her adventures as a younger child, then from the white farmers' perspective as the war rages and her family relationships become more strained, and eventually from her shockingly altered perspective as she confronts her new understanding of both her family and her country. I've enjoyed this book especially because the frame for Lauren St. John's story--the Rhodesian Bush War and the transformation of Rhodesia into Zimbabwe--is a well-developed historical account, beautifully integrated into her childhood memoir.

I lived for several years in South Africa, and when I read this book, I was transported back in time to the place I was happiest. This was a wonderful book with superb descriptions of a world now destroyed.

I grew up like this and I know what it takes to come out of it whole (or at least partly) - as you will never forget how and why we become the soil that makes us true ZIMBABWEANS.Thank you Alexandra - you are a legend. Flawless - in every sense - absolutely incredible breadth of space - the view you get through your own eyes is truly very real and utterly horrific.