I’ve only been at LSE a very short time, but I’m learning very quickly that the quality of the visiting speakers here is impeccable. Later this week, we welcome the distinguished Zimbabwean journalist and author Peter Godwin to the School to talk about education in his native country.
Peter Godwin has been in the headlines recently after the release of his sixth book entitled The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe. It’s a memoir chronicling Zimbabwe’s troubles and has been described by reviewers as being “moving, evocative and strangely tender” and “passionate and courageous”.
He visits LSE on Thursday to give a lecture entitled A Shadow of Its Former Self: Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s Education System.
Godwin started his career as a human rights lawyer in Zimbabwe. He then moved into journalism and became a foreign and war correspondent. The 54-year-old has reported from over 60 countries, including wars in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Somalia, Congo, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir and the last years of apartheid South Africa.
He also served as East European correspondent and Diplomatic correspondent for the London Sunday Times, and chief correspondent for BBC television’s flagship foreign affairs programme, Assignment, making documentaries from such places as Cuba, Panama, Indonesia, Pakistan, Spain, Northern Ireland, the Philippines, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltic States, and the Balkans as it descended into war.
His film, The Industry of Death, about the sex trade in Thailand, won the gold medal for investigative film at the New York Film Festival.
This event is being organised by LSE’s African Initiative in association with the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA).
Peter Godwin’s lecture will take place in the Alumni Theatre in the New Academic Building from 6pm on Thursday 9 June.
