Illness, and particularly eating disorders, are both a literal and metaphoric result of colonialism in this novel. The title, the book tells us, derives from an introduction to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth: "The condition of a native is a nervous condition." Nyasha's anorexia is convincing both as a sociologically oriented representation of an eating disorder, and as a metaphor for cultural imperialism, the subtle and insidious domination of one culture by another--in this case, Rhodesian village culture by British colonials.

Dangarembga focuses not only on domesticity and family life (including the more complex hierarchical structures involving uncles and aunts), but also on education, as sites in which cultural imperialism takes place. It's a particularly interesting examination of the complicated dynamic between British-educated parents who want their children to surpass them but feel betrayed when those children are so successfully assimilated as to have shallow or no African roots.

The connection between colonial Africa and anorexia surprises students, and as culturally specific as this narrative is, it also strikes a chord in particular with students, who have assimilated enough academic/pre-professional culture to become somewhat strange to their families and friends, while not yet familiar to established professionals in their discipline.