Pashena-literally "the dirt field"-is the coming-of-age tale of a group of neighborhood friends growing in the low-income township of Dangamvura, Mutare (Zimbabwe). The story spans five years in the mid to late 1990s, a period during which most of the boys go from seven and eight to the precipice of their teen years. Shingi has recently started school and is getting to meet the array of characters that are his neighborhood peers. Among...