Zimbabwean author Peter Godwin has a new family memoir coming out in fall 2024 titled Exit Wounds. The memoir will be published by Canongate, with Ellah Wakatama taking the lead in the editorial team by acquiring UK and Commonwealth rights.

South African rights were sold to Pan Macmillan South Africa and US rights were acquired by Little, Brown.

According to The Bookseller, Godwin’s new memoir is about “trying to regain your bearings when things fall apart.” While Peter’s 20-year marriage is gradually collapsing in New York City, Peter’s dying mother summons him to London to share certain secrets. When reunited with her son, the guarded matriarch opens up. Read the book to find out the secrets she reveals to Peter.

The publisher’s synopsis says:

Rendered in strikingly lyrical prose, Exit Wounds hits universal chords. It is a book about getting lost and trying to find your way home, about exile, physical and spiritual. And what it means to be a man with a weakness for strong women: his mother, his sisters, and his wife.

The memoir sounds fascinating, and we cannot wait to read about Godwin’s relationship with the women in his life. In an interview with The Bookseller, Godwin comments that the memoir has found a good fit, saying “I’m pleased that Exit Wounds has found such an enthusiastic reception at Canongate, and glad to be working with my fellow Zimbabwean, Ellah Wakatama, a collaboration we’ve been plotting to achieve for years.”

Wakatama, Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, says she is excited to work with Godwin on the memoir:

I have loved the humanity, humour and vulnerability of Peter Godwin’s writing from his very first book. Reading Exit Wounds is like embarking on a journey through the losses, realisations and seismic shifts of middle age – the change in relationships with partner and children, the loss of parents, the knowledge that the time ahead is so much less than the time past. It is the story of one who has lived in extraordinary times, and still wants to tell the tale.

Peter Godwin is a Zimbabwean author, journalist, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, and former human rights lawyer. He served as president of PEN American Center from 2012 to 2015 and currently teaches at the MFA program at Columbia University. He is best known for his journalism and writing on Zimbabwe, and has written six books. Exit Wounds is a family memoir, like Godwin’s earlier works Mukiwa and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. Mukiwa won the George Orwell Prize and the Esquire-Apple-Waterstones Award, while When a Crocodile Eats the Sun received the Borders Original Voices Award.

Congrats to Godwin on his latest memoir!