Getting through the 1990s
The 90s were a vibrant time of political and economic shifts. The 25-year-old State of Emergency was lifted and the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) was implemented. A new generation of young Zimbabweans had initiated radical ferment, students at the University of Zimbabwe “dared to dream of a freer world” and post independent writers emerged onto the literary scene. Among them was a young man named Ignatius T. Mabasa, who would write Mapenzi, a novel written in his mother tongue chiShona, which used the state of madness to ponder and reflect on the state of Zimbabwe. Mapenzi was published by College Press, Zimbabwe in 1999.
The Mad, which was launched in Harare at the National Gallery in October 2025, is an English translation of Mapenzi. It has been described as a novel that uses reality, poverty, irony, humour and ridicule to paint a poignant picture of the struggles of Zimbabweans in the 1990s. The protagonist and central character is a war vet named Hamundigone. I found it fascinating that his Chimurenga name Hamundigone can itself be translated to characterise the protagonist as one who cannot be subdued or conquered; he can be described as a notorious character – someone who wins against overwhelming circumstances usually caused by the community around him.
Fired
The story opens with Hamundigone having been fired from his role as a teacher because of his actions. He is accused of being unstable, or being mad (The fact that he impregnated a schoolgirl does not appear to have been a factor in his dismissal). Hamundigone is travelling to Harare in a kombi. He speaks, sometimes to his fellow travellers, and sometimes he just speaks and the reader discovers more not only about him but also about the world around him.
“As you see me, I have been through much and much has been through me.
Zimbabwe has mauled me so that even today the wounds remain unhealed
and septic like the scars I brought back from Mozambique after the war.
Zimbabwe has scooped out my spirit, the same way you do as when digging a grave.”
Using madness
People who are deemed to be ‘mad’ are unwanted travelling companions. I commend Ignatius Mabasa in his use of madness to transcend the self-censorship of many early post-independence writers. He presents us with a strong and often intimidating character who has no filter in what he says and whose utterings have the ability to generate empathy, exasperation and dislike from the reader in equal measure. At the same time we see him as a vulnerable human being reduced to eating from a rubbish bin.
Other characters like Magi, Bunny, Maud, VC, Mai Jazz and Kundai are first introduced then woven into the story. We discover titbits of information about their lives. We read about the struggles of financially unsupported university students and the lengths to which they go to survive. The connections wax and wane as the story moves forward and the reader discovers they are linked in a variety of ways that continue to evolve.
Humour is included in the bleakness as we meet Salisbury, a white-owned dog who is left to Mai Jazz after his owners have fled the newly independent country.
Learning to survive
Mai Jazz becomes the political commissar in a ZANU(PF) Women’s League Branch and when the city is renamed Harare, Salisbury the dog becomes Harare as well. His life changes dramatically but he soon learns he must survive or die and starts to eat sadza and to find food where he can.
While the writing has been accused by some as being fragmented and confusing at times I did not find it so. I immersed myself completely in The Mad. And as I read I remembered the crazy 1990s. At times the memory was painful: the beginnings and subsequent devastation of AIDS were so frightening. Rumours about the ‘short illness’ spread through Harare, and death became more and more familiar. Zimbabweans had to learn to hustle. The Mad is the terrifyingly familiar past of those who lived, and continue to live in Zimbabwe.
'Sanity is a very strange commodity'
Critic Kizito Muchemwa once said: “Sanity is a very strange commodity in the fictional world created by the new generation of storytellers.” Mabasa uses Hamundigone’s madness to allow him to ‘fearlessly blame the government’ and to speak openly and honestly about ‘the mental and physical anguish experienced by Zimbabweans in the 1990s, where the impact of the beginnings of the economic decline affected everyone. My son Liam, who was a pupil at Blakiston Primary School in Harare, told me that he and fellow students used to scratch out certain letters on their Eversharp pens so that the pens read ‘ESAP’. It is a sobering experience to look back on those times.
The Mad reminded me that even in the most difficult of times people are resiliently trying to live their best lives. One of the many strengths of this novel is that, through this story, I feel that I have ‘time travelled’ back to those times.
Captivated
I was fascinated to read that the original novel Mapenzi had been translated twice – once by author Tendai Huchu and now by Joyce Tsitsi Mutiti. I believe she succeeded in her task “to ferry the spirit of the book”. As a non-Shona speaker I am unable to comment much on aspects of translation except to note that it was Mutiti’s translation that ‘spoke to Mabasa’s heart’, as the author has stated in an interview.
As I finished reading The Mad I was so captivated by the book that I immediately sent a message to publisher Jane Morris to let her know that I found it to be an incredible read. I believe it to be a book that should be widely read – and I would recommend it thoroughly. My only regret is that I am unlikely to ever be able to read the original Mapenzi.
The Mad is co-published in the United Kingdom and in Zimbabwe by amaBooks Publishers and Carnelian Heart Publishing.
It is available in Zimbabwe through Book Fantastics (@bookfantastics), and in the United Kingdom through Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Mad-Ignatius-T-Mabasa/dp/1914287967) or through Carnelian Heart Publishing (https://carnelianheartpublishing.co.uk/product/the-mad/)
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