The book concentrates on conflicts between the MDC and Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and on family dynamics.

His family's connections to the situation in Zimbabwe are thoroughly explored, in particular with the revelation that his father was a Polish Jew fleeing the Warsaw ghetto.

"Tender, frustrated, unsentimental – this potent memoir holds little joy for Zimbabwe but is fiercely proud of its subjects' unyielding integrity."

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times[3] "Peter Godwin, an acclaimed Zimbabwean journalist now living in Manhattan, masterfully weaves the political and the highly personal.

An eyewitness account of that cataclysmic time, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is also a tribute to Godwin's aging parents and a searing exploration of the author's own soul."