Thursday, August 20, 2009
Silent Cry: Echoes of Young Zimbabwe Voices available outside Zimbabwe
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Enjoying Long Time Coming: Emmanuel Sigauke
So these short writings from Zimbabwe are really short, the length of the standard flash fiction, snippets of life in contemporary Zimbabwe. We have Petina Gappah writing about a dying bridegroom, a story that wows you with its humour and musicality, but sends you to tears with the grimness of its subject; Ignatius Mabasa, writing about a man who has forgotten his name in "Some Kind of Madness", a story that echoes Charles Mungoshi, but retains Mabasa's signature treatment of the theme of madness; there is the expected Chris Mlalazi (he has an intrusive voice that will uncover the filth and beauty of Bulawayo in a sweep of fast-paced prose; in most of his stories people are always running, long-bladed knives are brandished, and he will describe braai in a way that makes you think of firing up the grill); Thabisani Ndlovu is searing in "Stampede", a satirical voice that stings (first there is pain, then there is more pain, but still, there is laughter, albeit bitter laughter).
Two Batswana writers compassionately deal with the subject of Zimbabwean immigration; in one story a Zimbabwean wife-turned-breadwinner-and-carer of her husband resorts to prostitution in Botswana to get whatever money she can, but most importantly to afford medication for her husband back home; John Eppel, one of the most prolific writers of Zimbabwe, graphically portrays the subject of Murambatsvina in "The Award Ceremony"; as in most of Eppel's poetry and fiction, there is a no-holds-barred treatment of the politics of the country.
Brian Chikwava treats us to a story dealing with a truant boarding school boy who tells fiction to avoid punishment; you read and you know what he is doing, you know where the story is going, but you read on because you can't believe how funny the story, in its simple way, is.
This is not a review, of course, but I will say that in some of the stories ("Bus Fare", "The Chicken Bus", "Arrested Development", and others), the emotion driving the story is so strong that the craft is sacrificed, but, in most cases, the reader does not complain - the joy is in reading the story of Zimbabwe told from different angles, and in realising that it's one story these writers are sharing, the connective tissue that enables a volume like Long Time Coming, which for me, is a way to understand what really happened?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Extract of an interview with Memory Chirere
Currently, I am reading what others have just published. I want to go like that for a stretch. I am reading Petina Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly. I think she is wonderful. Her descriptions of childhood reminds me of Shimmer Chinodya. Her very honest oral touch reminds me of Chenjerai Hove, especially Ancestors and her story about a mad law student has Vera’s intensity. My comment should not make Petina cry! I have just read Long Time Coming and I think that you have in there the immensely fresh and talented writers like Judy Maposa, Sandisile Tshuma, Linda Msebele and Thabisani Ndlovu who leave you wondering, even crying: where have these gems been hibernating all along? Very soon I will be reading Harare North by Brian Chikwava. I have also just read Wonder Guchu’s new short story book, ‘My Children, My Home’. I do not know why he does not do many copies of it. It is very simply written that you realise it was not easy to write. The kind of feeling you have when you look into a tank of very clear waters that you see to the bottom. I still believe that Zimbabwe is a short country.
wordsetc article
The article below appeared in the First Quarter 2009 edition of the South African Literary Journal words etc.
Publishing in a Zimbabwe under strain
’amaBooks couldn’t have chosen a worse time to start a publishing house. It was 2000 and the Zimbabwean economy had just started its steady decline to today’s ludicrous situation where a teacher’s salary for a month might just buy a loaf of bread. So buying a book, although many would like to, is seen as a real luxury and, understandably, the purchase of a loaf of bread wins every time.
’amaBooks didn’t start as the result of many months of planning but as a result of a fluke. In an effort to raise money for the Bulawayo branch of the charity Childline, the Bulawayo based writer John Eppel, winner of the Ingrid Jonker Award for his first volume of poetry Spoils of War and the MNet prize for his first novel D.G.G. Berry’s The Great North Road donated a collection of his poems to be published to raise money. The task of publishing the book fell to the novices Brian Jones and Jane Morris, the former a professor of mathematics and the latter a clinical social worker, albeit with a university background in the study of literature.
We were fortunate in being guided in the process of publishing this first book by a patient printer who explained, in simple terms, such foreign concepts as page layout, filmwork and ISBNs to us. The collection, John Eppel: Selected Poems 1965 – 1995, sold out in a short space of time. We were heartened and, having enjoyed the process, and with the offer of two of John Eppel’s novels, decided to start a company to publish works in the English language, concentrating on creative writing, but not so hardline that we wouldn’t consider anything else interesting that came along. It didn’t take us long to come up with a name – we were to be an English language publisher in an Ndebele area, so a corruption of ‘books’ in Ndebele seemed a good idea. And so ’amaBooks was born.
‘amaBooks, a small independent publisher, is based twenty-five kilometres outside the city of Bulawayo, in Matabeleland in the South-West of Zimbabwe. Bulawayo, a city with the feel of a small town, used to be the industrial centre of Zimbabwe, but many of its industries have now closed and, like the rest of Zimbabwe, the majority of its people are unemployed. Matabeleland, five hours drive from the capital Harare and the seat of power, has long experienced lack of development and marginalization.
Our office is a room in our home. The staff of ’amaBooks are just the two of us, so we do whatever needs doing to keep ’amaBooks going - selection, proofreading, editing, origination, page design, advertising, PR, distribution, accounting…
The area around our home is beautiful, with stunning views to the distant Matopo Hills, but is far enough away from the city for service delivery to be erratic. The telephone has always been a problem – often off for weeks at a time during rainy seasons – but has worsened as fuel became difficult to obtain and foreign currency became too rare to import spare parts. So we’ve had no phone at all for the last four months.
Then there is the electricity supply. In January 2008 we were working on the computer on a quiet sunny afternoon when there was a ‘clunk’ – a sudden power surge and the power supply and motherboard on the computer were gone. Anxious days before finding that the files could be recovered, and anxious weeks before we could raise the funds to get the machine repaired, and to get a laptop for backup. ‘Load-shedding’ has also meant hours without electricity for many days each week for most in Zimbabwe, and the frequent breakdowns over the distance to us from the city has often meant no power for a week at a time.
The postal service in Zimbabwe also has problems – we just don’t know if books we’ve posted will arrive, and those that do get there, many don’t, can take months – even to Harare. Even a trip to the post office can turn in to an adventure. How much will it cost to send a book today? A hundred times last week’s cost? In what currency must we pay? We recently turned up at our local post office to find it was no longer there, it had closed as had many of the local offices, they could no longer afford to pay the rent.
Nature often doesn’t help – we were hit by a ferocious storm in January 2009, with a lightning strike on the house blowing every light bulb, surge protectors (sensibly purchased following the previous disaster), the computer and the printer. The office equipment still awaits replacement.
So how does a publisher work with rare electricity, no phone and an unreliable postal service? We have batteries that we charge up whenever there is electricity so that we can at least use a laptop in the long dark periods. The Culture Trust Fund of Zimbabwe have donated a generator to ’amaBooks. And we have friends in the city, to whom we travel a couple of times a week to send and receive emails to try to keep in communication with writers, reviewers, booksellers etc. And we have friends who travel outside the country and post books for us. But everything takes so much longer to sort out when you can’t pick up the phone, turn on the computer to send an email or check something on the internet, or just post a letter.
Life in Zimbabwe has become progressively more difficult over the last year, and so has publishing. There are few bookshops left in Zimbabwe and those there are often concentrate on stocking set schoolbooks. The number of books that are sold in Zimbabwe has obviously gone down with the economy. When inflation grew to millions of percent, by the time money from sales in shops reached us, it was not enough to cover the cost of going into the bank to get it. Then came price controls, forcing shops to halve their prices despite rampant inflation. So the shops stopped taking books, and the shelves got emptier and emptier, and many shops closed down. Now ‘dollarisation’ is with us, and goods, including books, may be sold in foreign currency. But very few people have any significant foreign currency, or sufficient quadrillions of Zimbabwe dollars to exchange for foreign currency.
So why do we carry on publishing? We enjoy it, we feel it important to encourage creative writing during these difficult times, to record what is happening now. And there have been some real highs. The book launches have often been celebrations, with enthusiastic crowds attending to hear the writers, even if few can afford to buy a book. Seeing people sitting around reading one of our books remains stimulating, as does passing strangers in the streets of Bulawayo who nod towards you, smile and call out: ‘amaBooks’. Other highs: reading reviews of the books in the press or on the web (on the rare occasions we have electricity, phone and internet connectivity at the same time); working with new writers; winning prizes at the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association awards and at the Zimbabwe National Arts Merit Awards.
We can smile now at some incidents that have occurred: having insufficient lighting during a packed launch of a poetry collection so that poets struggled to read their work with torches; an attentive row of people in dark suits and dark glasses during a launch in Harare; the breakdown of the binding machine at the printers that was fixed just in time for the books to be ready for the launch.
Working with new writers has been a significant part of our work as publishers. At the outset we decided that we wanted to provide an opportunity for new writers to get published, as when we started most Zimbabwean publishers were tending to concentrate on the better-known writers. We thought a good way to give the new writers a platform was in the Short Writings series, using their pieces alongside those from the more established authors. To date we have published 86 writers, among them those who have gone on to have books of their own published by us. Christopher Mlalazi’s Dancing with Life: Tales from the Township recently won a Zimbabwean National Arts Merit Award for Outstanding First Creative Published Book, as did another writer whom we first published, Deon Marcus, with his poetry collection, Sonatas.
We also wanted to publish writers from different backgrounds, races, experiences and ages; and we have been successful in attracting contributions to the Short Writings series from all of the communities of Bulawayo, from across Zimbabwe, from those in the diaspora, and from those who have simply visited Zimbabwe – all tell stories and all deserve to have their voices heard.
Despite the difficulties of publishing in Zimbabwe, it is a fertile environment for writers, in a country where truth is often stranger than fiction. Arguably the most vibrant writing form and the most suited to the Zimbabwe situation is the short story form, as exemplified in the Short Writings series - Short Writings from Bulawayo I, II and III, and the most recent in the series, Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe. The collections of short stories and poems offer snapshots of life in a deteriorating world. Writers are reflecting what they see around them on a daily basis – they vividly portray the human face of the everyday struggles of Zimbabweans. This writing documenting everyday lives is often more accessible than history, and is able to capture the human story. The story of family and friendship, of dreams and aspirations, of leaving home, of adapting to a changing environment, of loneliness, of fear and death, of growing old and of love; but in these books the story is set in a collapsing country, where basic services have crumbled, where shops have no food, taps no water, banks no money, hospitals no drugs, bars no beer. The writers also look at issues often hitherto avoided: the abuse of power, violence and oppression, the destruction of dreams. But there are lighter moments in the collections and moments of hope: in some of life’s simple pleasures, in the coming of the rains, in the wink and the smile of a stranger, in the times when the resilience of the people shines through.
Writers have generally been very forthright in their criticisms of the situation in Zimbabwe and of the leadership, though there has been, sensibly, some self-censorship. Any disparaging comment about the top leadership can lead to a lengthy prison sentence. We, as publishers, also wish to avoid this fate but to date have had no problems reaching agreement with the writers without compromising artistic freedom.
John Eppel, the third director of ’amaBooks, has made a significant contribution, particularly through his writing, from the lyricism of his poetry, even when expressing outrage at the present situation, to the biting satire of his prose. The ’amaBooks collections of his work, The Caruso of Colleen Bawn and Other Short Writings and White Man Crawling, continue our tradition of combining poetry and prose in the same volumes. His satirical novels The Curse of the Ripe Tomato, The Holy Innocents and Hatchings, that target black and white alike, have added a different dimension to ’amaBooks’ output.
As well as the poems in the various short writings collections and in Deon Marcus’ Sonatas, we recently published Intwasa Poetry. This was a culmination of our work with the literary arts sector of the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo, featuring fifteen poets, from within and outside Zimbabwe, who have read from their work at the festival. The diversity of the poetry in the book can be seen by looking at a few examples, the overtly socially committed poems of Véronique Tadjo and Ignatius Mabasa; the introspective deeply personal poems of Deon Marcus; the ironic playfulness of Julius Chingono; the lyrical beauty of Owen Sheers.
Literary arts have generally been the biggest sector in the Intwasa Festival over the past few years, with packed enthusiastic audiences for many of the events. The literary component of the festival takes place, as do the majority of ’amaBooks launches, at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, an elegant restored colonial building in the centre of the city. Launches attract audiences of several hundred people, drawn to the party atmosphere generated by readings from the book, by the opening of an art exhibition that often accompanies a launch, and by local music. Events tend to finish as darkness falls; transport back to the outer suburbs becomes erratic and expensive after dark.
Our other interest, outside of creative writing, is that of the culture of the area, and we have published Pathisa Nyathi’s Zimbabwe’s Cultural Heritage, Elspeth Parry’s The Rock Art of the Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe, and Marieke Clarke’s Mambo Hills: Historical and Religious Significance.
Without support from donors, ’amaBooks would have shut up shop. Our website (www.amabooksbyo.com) was sponsored by the Alliance Française de Bulawayo as part of a wider scheme of promoting the arts in Bulawayo. Other sponsors (including HIVOS, The Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust, SABDET, British Embassy) have helped by sourcing equipment, sponsoring launches and helping with printing costs.
The future? In Zimbabwe it is always very difficult to know what tomorrow might bring. On the drawing board at the moment are a first novel, This September Sun, by Bryony Rheam, another writer who has progressed from the Short Writings series, and Silent Cry: Echoes of Young Voices, the second collection of short stories and poems by young people, a British Council initiative as part of their Identity and Diversity project.
Some of our publications have now become available outside of Zimbabwe through the African Books Collective and some bookshops in South Africa stock our books. There has been interest from publishers in Europe in co-publishing books of Zimbabwe writing. A number of the writers that we first published have now left the country in search of a better future for themselves and their families. But many of the young writers that we have come across show promise, and, perhaps, others will return to record the recovery of Zimbabwe.
As we write, electricity is so unreliable that the surge protectors do not allow us to use many of our appliances – thank goodness for the laptop. If nothing else, ’amaBooks has taught us to dance with life.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe
Snapshots of living in a country where basic services have crumbled: where shops have no food, taps no water, banks no money, hospitals no drugs, bars no beer. Snapshots of characters surviving against seemingly insurmountable odds. Horrific snapshots of the abuse of power, of violence and oppression, of the destruction of dreams.
But this is Zimbabwe – there are lighter moments and moments of hope: in some of life’s simple pleasures, in the coming of the rains, in the wink and the smile of a stranger, in a challenge to patriarchy, in the inner strength of the people, in fighting back.
The writers are Raisedon Baya, Wim Boswinkel, Diana Charsley, Brian Chikwava, Julius Chingono, Mathew Chokuwenga, Bhekilizwe Dube, John Eppel, Peter Finch, Petina Gappah, David Goodwin, Anne Simone Hutton, Monireh Jassat, Ignatius Mabasa, Fungai Rufaro Machirori, Judy Maposa, Deon Marcus, Christopher Mlalazi, Gothataone Moeng, Wame Molefhe, Linda Msebele, Mzana Mthimkhulu, Peter Ncube, Thabisani Ndlovu, Pathisa Nyathi, Andrew Pocock, John S. Read, Bryony Rheam, Lloyd Robson, Ian Rowlands, Owen Sheers, Chaltone Tshabangu and Sandisile Tshuma.
You don’t have to be in Zimbabwe to know or experience what is happening in Zimbabwe. All you have to do is get yourself a copy of ’amaBooks’ Long Time Coming. The book is about hope, about resilience, and how the people have waited for so long to be delivered from their suffering. A fine read. – The Zimbabwean
In a powerful and timely collection of short stories and poems about Zimbabwe by 33 writers, Long Time Coming offers snapshots of life in a collapsed country. It is a collection straining with suspended hope; change has taken too long to arrive. Gemma Ware – The Africa Report
Review from New Internationalist
It is little short of miraculous that, despite the disease, oppression and hyper-inflation that is the reality of today’s Zimbabwe, writers are writing and publishers are publishing. With even the much-derided official inflation rate in the multi-million per cent bracket, I have no idea how ‘amaBooks, who are based in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, have managed to raise the resources to publish this volume but I do know they deserve the highest possible praise for doing so. They describe these short stories and poems by 33 writers who live in or have a connection with Bulawayo as ‘snapshots... of a country where shops have no food, banks no money, hospitals no drugs, bars no beer.’ Each piece here – and they are miniature marvels, with no story longer than eight pages – vividly illuminates an aspect of what it is actually like to live in a country that has been systematically looted and stripped of functioning organizations.
Daily life becomes a one-sided struggle against insurmountable odds; a recurring theme is the immense difficulty in simply getting from place to place when there is no public transport and petrol is scarce and ruinously expensive. Those lucky enough to have jobs earn less than the cost of their journey to work and those without work battle despair and hunger. There are odd glimmers of lightness and pleasure here, albeit tinged with gallows humour. It would be unfair to single out individual authors for praise but, taken together, these stories cohere into a panorama of Zimbabwe. Read Long Time Coming and remember the next line in Sam Cooke’s song ‘...but I know a change is gonna come’.
*****
Review from The Africa Report
A MAN TRIES TO FIND Z$5,000 for his bus ride home. A woman about to get married waits with her fiancé for the results of an HIV test. A defeated president gets ready to vacate his palace, but his wife refuses to leave until she has found her favourite pair of yellow shoes. In a powerful and timely collection of short stories and poems about Zimbabwe by 33 writers, Long Time Coming offers snapshots of life in a collapsed country. It is a collection straining with suspended hope; change has taken too long to arrive. “My country is like/ an empty but attractive/ plastic packet,” writes poet Julius Chingono, “being blown by the wind/ along the road that leads to a rubbish dump/ by the cemetery.” Zimbabwe’s plight is perfectly suited to the short story and offerings come from both celebrated writers like Petina Gappah, Christopher Mlalazi and John Eppel, and a clutch of emerging talents from Zimbabwe and the diaspora. Political frustration, brutal violence and painful loss is met with practical resignation and grim humour. Despite the patient optimism in the book’s title, little of this makes its way into the stories. Unpicking the loneliness she has noticed in everyone lately, in ‘Arrested Development’ Sandisile Tshuma calls it a “pervasive and virus-like affliction” borne on glimpses of a life and future we can feel “slipping through our fingers”. In a country, where Raisedon Baya writes in ‘Echoes of Silence’, “silence became a way of life”, Zimbabwe’s writers are trying to incite its people against it. GEMMA WARE
*****
Review from www.artsinitiates.com
by Memory Chirere, University of ZimbabweLong Time Coming carries stories laced up with short poems. It takes variegated glances at what has come to be termed the Zimbabwe crisis for close to a decade now. The glances are thankfully numerous and this is the blessing brought by bringing together many writers under one cover. In most of these stories there is the outstanding view that what bedevils Zimbabwe comes from the inside and outside and from the unresolved Zimbabwe past. Then, sadly, there is the uncomplicated view by a few of the writers here that all Zimbabwe’s problems are due solely to misrule or due only to the evils of one tribe over another. Even more intriguing is the view by some writers here that the Zimbabwean crisis opens up new opportunities and ways of viewing Zimbabwe, present past and future.
You come across the multi talented type like Pathisa Nyathi, Ignatius Mabasa, John Eppel, Raisedon Baya and Julius Chingono. Then you have the immensely fresh and very talented like Judy Maposa, Sandisile Tshuma Linda Msebele and Thabisani Ndlovu who leave you wondering, even crying: where have these gems been hibernating all along? Then there are visitors to Zimbabwe like Ian Rowlands and Gothataone Moeng who felt touched by what we do to one another and what has been done to us in Zimbabwe.
Judy Maposa could be the greatest find in this book. Her story First Rain is a transcendental piece. Here the world is solid, gas and liquid. I have only met the equivalent in Jose Saramago of the novel called The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. I read this story five times for the sheer opportunity of being transfigured. In the end Judy Maposa’s dry Bulawayo has water gushing from every tap.
Sandisile Tshuma’s Arrested Development can work as an example of how good stories can only come if writers ‘forget’ form and structure and tell their story unhinged like you do to a close mate from the comfort of night and darkness when the door is shut. Pillow talk is how I could describe Sandisile’s story. No wonder why the editor made this one the first story. In half a dozen pages she effortlessly takes you through issues of inflation, border jumping, tribalism, queues…
Linda Msebele is a writer of great courage. Her The Chicken Bus could be the most uplifting story in this book. Her characters ‘refuse to turn sour, the ones who won’t let fear cloud their brows, the ones who still smile.’
Thabisani Ndlovu’s Stampede can win a prize any day. It is a surrealist work of art about how body, spirit and mind engage in a wretched struggle against one another before the final fall. It is about working for systems in which one remains invisible and one can never dare rebel or think about it.
The more well known writers bring depth and experimentation to this anthology. You see it in the poetry of experienced masters like John Eppel and Pathisa Nyathi. They make Bulawayo come alive with both its beauty and ugliness.
The ‘Harare boys’ cannot be outdone. Julius Chingono writes with a very well hidden tension that erupts from seemingly simple narrative. He begins with: ‘I had no bus fare to take me home and it was 4:45pm’ and all hell breaks loose. Chingono’s story is about the desperate levels to which people can sink in the Zimbabwean crisis. A grown up man finds suddenly that he not even a single cent to get him onto the bus back home.
Ignatius Mabasa’s story is about the shifting identities during the Zimbabwean crisis. Although Mabasa argues that he prefers the Shona medium, his story here in English shows why he is fast becoming the leading Zimbabwean writer of his generation. His poem called Poetry is goes:
Poetry is a white child
Lost in the darkness of a cinema house
Holding my black hand
Calling me daddy…
You should not miss the stories of the three writers of the moment in Zimbabwe, Brian Chikwava, Christopher Mlalazi and Petina Gappah. However, be warned! You need to read their short stories with both your eyes and mind open. In the end you may laugh and cry at the same time.
The book helps to show that ’amaBooks could be fast becoming for Bulawayo what Weaver Press is to Harare. You see it in the very meticulous editing and inspired choice and arrangement of artists.
*****
Review from The Zimbabwean
You don’t have to be in Zimbabwe to know or experience what is happening in Zimbabwe. All you have to do is get yourself a copy of ’amaBooks’ Long Time Coming and plough through it. At the end of your reading you’ll, without doubt, have gone through the total Zimbabwean experience.
This publication pits together thirty three writers from different backgrounds, races, experiences and genres. Thabisani Ndlovu, Pathisa Nyathi, John Read, Monireh Jassat, Brian Chikwava and Petinah Gappah are some of the contributors to this anthology. Thirty three writers as different as their names, writers with their own individual voices and styles. Old writers who have done it all share this platform with young and new writers still trying to get on their feet in the literary world.
Thirty three writers painting their thoughts, feelings, dreams, fears and nightmares about Zimbabwe, a country Julius Chingono aptly describes as “an empty but attractive/ plastic packet . . . / that leads to a rubbish dump/ by the cemetery.”
Old wounds refusing to heal, scars yearning to be scratched, fresh and open wounds begging for attention, diseases, drought, betrayal, and a lot of other issues afflicting the former bread basket of Africa are unpacked in this poignant anthology whose stories are connected by their setting, the interlinking themes and a shared responsibility by the writers to be the voice of those that are still searching for their own voices or too afraid to open their mouths.
Bhekilizwe Dube writes about an abusive relationship created around the squalor and ugliness of a township slowly being reduced to a village. City people are seen fetching water from boreholes like in the rural areas. It took Thandi “near death” to realize she has to get out of a violent relationship. There is obviously another layer of meaning to this story, some kind of political connotation. The writer is not just angry at his sister for allowing the abuse to go on for so long. He is also angry at his fellow citizens who have allowed politicians to abuse them to a state of near death. The story is, perhaps, a wake up call to say its time people changed their situation by getting out of politically abusive relationships.
King of Bums has the streetwise Chris Mlalazi examining post independent Zimbabwe and what it means to a new generation of born frees. It is a story of anger and betrayal where the young feel they are being held at ransom for not having been born or being old enough to take part in the liberation war. In this story post independent Zimbabwe is seen more as a living nightmare instead of the land of honey and milk promised during the war of liberation. Ian Rowlands, a casual Welsh visitor to Zimbabwe, comes face to face with the rape of innocence during a visit to a township in Bulawayo. At an Aids orphanage he comes across young orphans whose only crime is to hope and dream for a better Zimbabwe. And at the end of his visit Ian Rowlands can only ask: “What manner of man would allow such innocence to be destroyed?”
There is so much going on in Zimbabwe that sometimes it is difficult to maintain one’s sanity. The pressures are just too much. Ignatius Mabasa explores the theme of temporary insanity in Some Kind of Madness. One of his characters wakes up to the realization that he has forgotten who he is. Although he can remember his hunger, the smell of hospitals where relatives are taken and never come back, of the colour of death on people’s skins (obviously AIDS related), he can’t remember who he is. A very worrisome experience.
But then all is not gloom and depressing. There are lighter moments in the anthology. Moments like the ones Mzana Mthimkhulu creates with Not Slaves to Fashion. A wedding and preparations for celebrations. Moments of hope. Like all citizens of Zimbabwe the writers know the importance of hope. A hope for a better tomorrow. This is explored by Judy Maposa in First Rain. In her story she wishes for “rain to wash away all the corruption in the land. A rain to cleanse and restore all that has been touched by the dark side of man.” This rain is long overdue. It has taken a long time coming.
Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe is about hope, about resilience, and how the people have waited for so long to be delivered from their suffering. A fine read.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Dancing with Life: Tales from the Township
Christopher Mlalazi
Published by 'amaBooks of Bulawayo 2008
Dancing with Life is a collection of short stories by Christopher Mlalazi. He has had stories published in anthologies inside and outside Zimbabwe, but this is his first collection. Mlalazi himself dwells in one of the townships he so convincingly brings to vibrant life in his writing. Dancing with Life was featured book of the month for August 2008 on the African Books Collective Website, and the cover of the book is that of the cover of the African Books Collective catalogue for 2008. Dancing with Life won the 2009 Zimbabwe National Arts Merit Award for Outstanding First Published Creative Book.
'Mlalazi is an important author whose work should be found in all serious collections of contemporary African literature. In addition, here is a title to be added to collections designed to inform readers of contemporary life in Africa through fiction writing.'
Paul H. Thomas, Hoover Institution
‘Christopher Mlalazi may well be the most promising younger writer in Zimbabwe today. His fiction captures the edgy energy of townships where young people have learned to be light on their feet, their dancing born of economic necessity and mocking disrespect for traditional authority. Mlalazi depicts contemporary life in Zimbabwe with an uncompromising determination to explore grievous social wounds and with a creative panache that will win him readers within and beyond his home country.’
Patricia Alden, Professor of African Literature, St. Lawrence University, USA
‘Christopher Mlalazi is the rising voice of the ghetto, with all its violence, sharp anger, bitter protestations and tangible promise of a better tomorrow.’
Raisedon Baya, Writer and Columnist
‘In this debut story collection, Christopher Mlalazi has achieved every writer’s dream: he has written the stories of perfectly ordinary people in a way that makes their experiences universal. This collection sparkles with wit, sizzles with style and dances with life. It is a welcome addition to Zimbabwe’s growing canon and will be read and enjoyed for years to come.’
Petina Gappah, Writer
*****
Review from the African Book Publishing Record XXXV, no.1 2009
by Paul H. Thomas, Hoover Institution
The author of this collection of short stories hails from Zimbabwe where he is well-known as a poet, playwright and writer. His plays have been performed throughout Zimbabwe and he is also beginning to work on dramas for television. His writings have been published in several local and international short story anthologies, including Short Writings from Bulawayo III (Bulawayo: ‘amaBooks, 2006) (Caine Prize 2006 Anthology). For all of those who enjoy his writings and want to read more, his blog may be of interest.
The stories found in Dancing with Life are easily read, entertaining and often filled with both sadness and humour. Although quite entertaining, their underlying value lies in the way in which Mlalazi reflects life in contemporary Zimbabwe, especially in the townships (although neither Zimbabwe itself nor any recognizable politician or person is ever specifically named). It is not a pretty picture. Political corruption, stultifying poverty, family and societal breakdown, and violence, as day to day realities are the underlying themes of these stories. There is anger and hopelessness (as well as joy and hope) all on display here in the way Zimbabweans living in the townships, but especially the youth, see their lives affected, diminished. We read these stories and cannot help but feel that people should not have to find themselves facing such a world, and we wonder how they can cope with all the vicissitudes they face.
Mlalazi is an important author whose work should be found in all serious collections of contemporary African literature. In addition, here is a title to be added to collections designed to inform readers of contemporary life in Africa through fiction writing.
*****
Review from Words Etc June 2009
by Dan Wylie, Rhodes University
This collection of eleven “tales from the township” extends what has become something of a tradition in post- independence Zimbabwean writing: vignettes of urban life, generally of the deprived classes, which focus on individual lives in the midst of economic decline and state terrorism. It’s a genre that seems to exist in the cracks between public imageries, to want to be a little inconspicuous. While generally avoiding overt political critique, these snapshots of the often shattered lives of township denizens nevertheless show the marks of political abuse in every daily transaction.
Christopher Mlalazi’s collection is like this, too. The stories vary between twenty and two pages, the characters are generally dislocated, their dilemmas torn between scratching out a living and pursuing relationships in an environment where families have collapsed, infidelity is endemic, and traditional spiritual beliefs persist into modern fragmentation. Some of the stories might be termed social realist; a couple are livelier in venturing into imaginative satire. At its best, this bites strongly.
In “Matchstick Man” the eponymous protagonist lights the fires of resistance to the state: “They beat the fire with acid statements in the state media. They tear gassed it, set police dogs on it, truncheoned it, shot at it, and, finally, the two lions subdued it at the palace door. They put it in a straitjacket, raked its face with their sharp claws, drawing blood, then carried it away still struggling to an unnamed grave deep in the sacred forest behind the palace, in which, it was rumoured, resided the maimed spirits of silencing.”
Another satirical squib, “Election Day”, lampoons an unnamed dictator’s terror of losing an election; while it’s quite funny, it relies on a fairly crude twist in the tail. Another brief vignette, “The Bulldozers are Coming”, is set against the background of Murambatsvina (Operation Clean-Up), like Valerie Tagwira’s recent novel, The Uncertainty of Hope. It portrays one woman’s personal tragedy as the direct result of government oppression, which is of course quite legitimate, even necessary, but it sacrifices complex individuality and characterisation for making its blunt point.
Mlalazi’s prose is generally serviceable rather than inventive. The undeniable courage of societal and political critique – in Mlalazi’s case from an occasionally explicitly Ndebele viewpoint – is pervasive, but falls short of a far-reaching historical density, and of ever daring to actually name the ultimate culprits: Mugabe and his party henchmen. This work is still a little shy, a little fearful of retribution, a little unambitious in its scope. Still, it is also not just about politics, but centrally about the tangled lives of ordinary people.
That said, Mlalazi has extended himself further than many of his contemporaries, and observed his world sharply. One looks forward to more writing from this new talent.
*****
by Beaven Tapureta
Reading Dancing with Life is like walking on a suspended tightrope, arms of the mind spread apart so as not to lose equilibrium, looking down on Mlalazi’s characters as they struggle to survive in today’s Zimbabwe.
You certainly don’t want to fall into their lives, but you are transported right into the township.
As you finish the first story, Broken Wings, you can’t help the tears forming in your eyes. Nozitha the teenage caregiver suffers right in front of you. She collects the family ration of food aid and takes care of her mother and grandmother who are both AIDS victims. Her grandfather Siziba is too weak to help himself. Abisha, a food aid worker, as if he cares, asks, “Where is God then? Tell me, you who believe, when people as young as this girl have to suffer like this.”
But, he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing - he rapes Nozitha, after tempting her with a bottle of cooking oil that she would already have received had Sibiya, the village’s party supremo, not demanded from Nozitha her grandfather’s ruling party membership card, which she did not have with her. As a girl child exposed to the vagaries of politicized food aid and hypocrisy, Nozitha embodies, frighteningly, the suffering of Zimbabwe’s women. AIDS has come to devour all, directly or indirectly, and now left are only too many Nozithas, just too many ‘mothers of enemies’, orphans of the endless war.
Election Day satirically exposes a leader who seems rash. Instead of accepting advice from his personal advisor about what was happening outside, His Excellency says to him, “Now, let me give you some free advice, my personal advisor. Your assessment of the povo is very wrong, just like judging the sweetness of an orange by its skin or that of a woman by the shape of her hips.” But, come Election Day, the household of His Excellency is in panic. Knowing that her husband’s fate will also be her own, Modi thinks of sneaking to “the coffee plantation in South America or the castle in Belgium.” But in a twist of the plot, the ‘impossible’ happens; Modi’s husband wins the election.
The Border Jumper illustrates vividly what happens when there is strife and people are disillusioned, made to believe that nothing good will ever come from their own land. Zenzo and Vusa represent the shattered dreams of young people crossing to South Africa through illegal means, despite the crocodiles in the Limpopo, the patrolling police and the demanding ‘guides’, hoping to find new hope on the other side of the border. Mbedzi, who guides the illegal migrants, knows why he must play his part. He prays to the departed spirits to “also grant them a safe haven from the poverty they are fleeing.”
One of the unforgettable episodes in recent Zimbabwe history, Operation Murambatsvina, or Operation Clean Up, is featured in The Bulldozers Are Coming. As always, it is the women who carry the brunt of the suffering and pain. Left alone at home, her husband far away, the woman in the story is confronted with a moment of indecision. The bulldozers will not be lenient, she has to act fast. Even the old woman next door has already started to pull the roof down on her own to try to save her few possessions. Here, the author shows a world ruined, a place of misery.
The title story, Dancing with Life, pictures the life of Mxolisi, representative of the many disillusioned, unemployed ex-university students in Zimbabwe. At 21, Mxolisi chain smokes marijuana, and plays hide and seek with the police. He knows that it is the economic meltdown that has put him in this jam, forcing him to dance with life.
Mlalazi’s writing is particularly outstanding when he uses humour to tackle serious themes, such as in the stories Eeish!, When The Fish Caught Him, A Heart in My Hole and Fragments. In Eeish! Ndla lives through his father’s drunkenness and his memory of witnessing his mother’s infidelity. He befriends a white soldier in the Zimbabwean army, Craig, who moves into the township. Craig encourages him to join the army or the National Youth Service. Ndla is unimpressed: “And throw stones at the white farmers while the children of chiefs get premature potbellies at Fort Hare University?”
The story titled The Matchstick Man is allegorical and complex, with the Matchstick Man fighting for his freedom from the ‘granite bull’, ‘lions in diamond-studded leather collars’, ‘cockroaches carrying AK47 rifles’ and ‘obese gun-toting rats’. Matchstick Man is a rebel. When the fire engine is sent to put out Matchstick Man’s fire, he responds, “Where is the fire? For I do not see it.” And he is told, “It’s in your crazy head!”
Dancing With Life engages the mind, ruffles it, and uses the language of today’s Zimbabwe, township life booming with crime, prostitution, joy, misery, and naked political falsehoods.
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