Two Suitcases

About the Book

European settlers in colonial Africa did not have an easy time, depending on what they came with. Theirs’ was a life of adventure, hardship, homesickness, disease and sometimes, war. The title is Two Suitcases because that is what most Europeans arrived in Africa with, and subsequently left with. Two Suitcases; Colonialism Crumbles, tells the stories of two normal families with different aspirations, beliefs and backgrounds, one family being British and one being Afrikaans, and their experiences in Southern Africa. The story covers the Boer War to settling in Rhodesia, through the First World War and the hardships of the Great Depression followed by the Second World War. And then, Ian Smith signs Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Much of the Two Suitcases trilogy has been inspired by three great writers, Wilbur Smith, James Mitchener and Stuart Cloete. Watch out for Two Suitcases – Part Two; The Leap into Uncertainty, covering Rhodesia’s UDI and Bush War years, followed by Two Suitcases - Part Three; Descent into Darkness, covering the birth of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe to the present day.

About the Author

Mike Bellis was born in the UK in the early 1950s and emigrated to Southern Rhodesia with his parents when he was six months old. He was schooled in Umtali (now Mutare), Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), studied agriculture after leaving school and, like nearly every other white Rhodesian youngster during the 1970s, did his time in the Bush War. He farmed in Zimbabwe until 2003 before trying his hand at other things, even writing a book. He is married to Carol, a fourth generation Rhodesian/Zimbabwean of Afrikaans descent. They have a son and daughter, one in the UK and the other in Mozambique.