Then a Wind Blew is Kay Powell’s first novel. It is set in the final months of the war in Rhodesia, before it became Zimbabwe, and the story unfolds through the voices of three women. The women have nothing in common, but the events of war conspire to draw them into each other’s lives in a way that none of them could have imagined. The novel develops and intertwines their stories, showing us the ugliness of war for women caught up in it and reminding us that, in the end, we all depend on each other.

The characters and places in the novel are fictional, but the historical context is factually accurate. It draws on Kay’s experience of the war and on subsequent research. She wrote it partly because she’d always wanted to try her hand at writing fiction. She’s also long been interested in the subject of women in war – the burdens they bear, the wounds they carry – and chose the guerrilla war in Zimbabwe as her vehicle for the subject, because it was something she knew, first hand.

She also wrote it because she felt that she’d never really explained the guerrilla war to her daughters, who were born during it and grew up asking questions about it. Then a Wind Blew is an attempt to explain it to them, with all its nuances.

Published 3rd February 2021 by Weaver Press; print and eBook format (220pp); ISBN 978-1-77922-383-8

For a VIDEO of readings from the book, and an author interview, see: https://youtu.be/WclsQb6Ej8U

For an ARTICLE on what led the author to write this novel, see: https://booksbywomen.org/then-a-wind-blew/

“Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version.” 

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