I Will Always Write Back Themes

I Will Always Write Back is a story about how acts of kindness and generosity can change a life—in particular the lives of the authors, long-distance pen pals Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda. The kind deeds that Caitlin and Martin do for each other start small but escalate over the course of the book. Caitlin (who is American) begins their correspondence by doing research about Zimbabwe (where Martin is from), going above and beyond…

At the center of I Will Always Write Back is the friendship between Caitlin and Martin, which spans continents and develops over the course of years. This friendship has unexpected benefits, enriching not only their own lives, but also their family and community members’ lives. Caitlin and Martin’s relationship begins as something unexceptional: an exchange of pleasantries in letters written for a school assignment. At first, they know little about each other beyond stereotypes…

Much of I Will Always Write Back deals with Martin’s struggle to pay for his education and Caitlin’s efforts to help him, whether it’s the tuition for Martin’s local school in Zimbabwe, for the exclusive boarding school he transfers to, or for the American university that he ultimately ends up attending. Despite the enormous costs of education for Martin—who lives in Zimbabwe in the 1990s and early 2000s, when inflation is extreme and…