Tsitsi Dangarembga , whose novel Nervous Conditions has become a modern African classic. It was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989.It has since been translated into a number of languages. Dangarembga has dealt in her works with the oppressive nature of a patriarchal family structure and a woman's coming-of-age.
"My soul is African," she has said, "it is from there that springs the fountain of my creative being."

The title of Nervous Conditions is borrowed from Jean-Paul Sartre's introduction to Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth. The 'nervous condition' of the native is, according to Sartre, a function of mutually reinforcing attitudes between colonizer and colonized that condemn the colonized to what amounts to a psychological disorder. The narrator of the story is Tambudzayi Sigauke, who looks back on her childhood in colonial Rhodesia of the sixties and seventies. Her brother is sent to a mission school, but the family don't have money for Tambu's education. Tambu grows maize to earn her own school fees, only to have her brother steal her produce. Also her father attempts to claim the money because he doesn't believe that the education of women is important. When his brother dies Tambu enters the school - the family does not have any other sons. She becomes friends with her cousin Nyasha, who has spent five years in England and who refuses to conform to society's expectations for women. Gradually Tambu leaves behind those parts of her family, herself and her culture that she cannot accept - an analogue of the independence process of Zimbabwe. She also rejects her highly educated uncle, Babamukuru, who believes that Tambu's education will enable her to marry well. When Babamakuru's authority becomes increasingly irrational, Tambu sees that she must free herself from the division between tradition and modernity: the struggles women face are similar, regardless of their class. -

It is a known fact that women in Africa really have to strive hard on two grounds ,firstly to liberate themselves from the subjugation of the colonial rule and secondly in fighting the effects of patriarchal traditions in the history of their culture. Tsitsi Dangarembga's portrayal of five women in her novel Nervous Conditions is a striking reminder that African women are under a double yoke when it comes to making their voices heard.The most significant aspect of the novel "Nervous Conditions"relates to the male arrogance and prejudice toward women's writings, sexism in the publishing field, and lack of educational opportunities for majority of Zimbabwean women. This fact, which basically arises from the traditional social structure that places the female as a "second- class" being, illustrates a significant factor in the silencing of the female voice.So many restrictions have been imposed on women's social being, their thought processes,and their life as a whole and the male members of the society use this control and impostion as a weapon to silence the subordinate,submissive and so called 'muted' females.

In her essay on women's writing in Zimbabwe, Flora Veit-Wild acknowledges some important features in the modest literary endeavors of Zimbabwean women:
... the writings closely reflect reality; in a very immediate and direct way women react to the social
situation around them. As yet, it is not a very elaborate or sophisticated literature in terms of style,
innovation or technique. But it shows a great awareness of the contradictions and problems the new
Zimbabwe society has to face and solve.
The women faced numerous social problems that negate women's enjoyment of a better status in post-war Zimbabwe.Despite women's participation in national struggle, the Zimbabwean male attitude to their women remains unchanged in the post-war years. In the pre-war years it can be said that the women worked hard, were overlooked, their labour not valued, and so on. Now the post-war situation for some women is almost the same as it was before,that is, women working hard without any acknowledgement.Against this social background, Dangarembga engages the problems facing her female characters. By portraying their lives, she exposes primal reasons for their quest for independence. Her primary agenda in Nervous Conditions is to expose the mechanism of male domination in Zimbabwean society. She thus explores the patterns of female subordination arising from patriarchy and its interrelationship with the experience of colonization.Her representations of male dominance in the lives of women emphasize its complexity. The narrator, Tambu, achieves voice through narration, an act that gives her liberation from her patriarchal-imposed silence and offers hope in the resilience and success of female challenge.