When Tsitsi Dangarembga’s debut novel “Nervous Conditions” was published in 1988, it was hailed as one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature.

It tells the story of Tambudzai, a girl raised in poverty in what was then called Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, as well as her fight to obtain an education and the challenges of entrenched gender inequality, Africa in the 1960s and ’70s, and the postcolonial world. Her publisher soon wanted a sequel.