Thinking About Harare North
As I process the review of Harare Noth by Brian Chikwava, which I plan to post or publish somewhere (anywhere), let me share my excitement (again) about this book and the direction Zimbabwean literature is taking.
Harare North is one of a few soon-to-be released (April 2) books I throw in the trunk of my car when I visit friends,fellow Zimbabweans or other Africans especially, because at such gatherings there is always one person who will remember that either I write or I talk about books often. I end up running to my car to fetch a book to share something about it with the person. The last time this happened I was with a small group of close friends from Zimbabwe, so I had the chance to read a few paragraphs from Harare North. I always feel that sharing information about such new publications I may influence the target audience of Zimbabweans, especially those in the Diaspora, to order copies for themselves (I don't see myself lending my heavily annotated copy to anyone). I call Zimbabweans a primary audience for Harare North because there are things they will understand as they read this book that no other readers will get right away. The cultural ideosyncracies in the novel are quite a treat, a rich source of great humor.
So I read the few paragraphs. I acted the parts, encouraged by my audience's laughter. Because one of the people in the audience had just returned from Zimbabwe, the dialogue ended up being about how I should have been at the border of South Africa and Zimbabwe in February/early March to witness the experiences fellow Zimbabweans go through daily. If I had been there, she said, I would have written a novel. I said, don't worry, another Zimbabwean writer, Christopher Mlalazi, has already written a novel, Many Rivers, to be released in May by Lion Press Ltd (UK. He does a good job of portraying the struggles of Zimbabweans in South Africa as they cross endless rivers for opportunities.
So then I read another paragraph, and everyone was impressed by the fact that although the book was written in English,it manages to read like a Shona or Ndebele book in parts. Is the writer a bad writer? Is that his English? Did he self-publish?
The writer knows English, I explained. He won a Caine Prize for one of his short stories in English, and it is the title story of Seventh Street Alchemy, a collection of prize-winning short stories. It is available on Amazon. And, yes, if you know Shona or Ndebele, you can have direct access to the mind of the narrator, and you may laugh, often at him (because we laugh at each other's English). As to the writer being a bad one, oh no, far from it. So then why? Who would publish such a book where the narrator speaks in Shonglish? This one was done by Random House (through Jonathan Cape). You are kidding, right? Actually, no. Look here....
I read another sentence, the one in which the narrator sees newspaper headlines featuring Mugabe on the front cover and he insists, there in London, on calling him His Excellency:"The paper say Zimbabwe has run out toilet paper. That make me imagine how many times of bum wiping with the ruthless and patriotic Herald newspaper, everyone's troubled buttock holes get vex and now turn into likkle red knots."
There is really something wrong with this Shonglish-speaking narrator, someone in the room says. You got that right:there is really something wrong with the mind of Harare North's narrator. You can call him schizo, psychotic, DID, multi-personality, alter-ego.... Really? Yes, call him Anything-goes and expect anything from him, even his unique use of language, some stuff we as Zimbabweans may not even recognize. So this writer is like Marechera then? Well, he has been labeled as such, but when the world reads this novel, minds may change; he may finally attain his own position in Zimbabwean literature as himself. You are kidding, right? No; perhaps now it's time we move beyond Marechera. That man was something else though, wasn't he? Oh yes, he was, and still is. You know about the conference at Oxford University in May?
Soon we are eating sadza and the tough chicken that can only be found at the Chinese Supermarket, the one we have eaten for over ten years because it tastes like home. Harare North now sits content on a coffee table, not quite forgotten yet. I will bring it back on the next visit.
I want Zimbaweans to get in the culture of reading for pleasure. I want to go to African book signings and greet many African readers there. Zimbabwean writers are producing high-quality literature which needs to find Zimbabwean readers ready. There is just a lot in these books that we can't afford to miss, to understand what the Zimbabwean situation was and is really about. Of course, we know what it is about, but when you read it in a short story, or a novel, there is a way of looking at it that you may not have thought about, or seen. And what's refreshing is that what you will see in the good stories is art just being art, pleasing you.
One of the listeners at another gathering, an African accountant, once told me that the problem with African literature is that it is too political, that it covers in Zimbabwe what already happened in Nigeria, or Angola, so there is nothing new to expect in the African novel. Minus the politics, it's not literature.
Not anymore.
The new names cropping up are taking the literature to new heights; and this literature is gripping the attention of readers everywhere. We are expanding to all kinds of genres, challenging you, entertaining you, and, ultimately, giving you a moment to escape in the worlds we have represented. And even if it were political, remember it is not going to be political in the way a newspaper report will be; it will show you why it cannot help but be political, if it insists on being political. Sometimes, a story just has to be....
As I was saying, the narrator of Harare North introduces a new chapter in African literature.
Harare North is one of a few soon-to-be released (April 2) books I throw in the trunk of my car when I visit friends,fellow Zimbabweans or other Africans especially, because at such gatherings there is always one person who will remember that either I write or I talk about books often. I end up running to my car to fetch a book to share something about it with the person. The last time this happened I was with a small group of close friends from Zimbabwe, so I had the chance to read a few paragraphs from Harare North. I always feel that sharing information about such new publications I may influence the target audience of Zimbabweans, especially those in the Diaspora, to order copies for themselves (I don't see myself lending my heavily annotated copy to anyone). I call Zimbabweans a primary audience for Harare North because there are things they will understand as they read this book that no other readers will get right away. The cultural ideosyncracies in the novel are quite a treat, a rich source of great humor.
So I read the few paragraphs. I acted the parts, encouraged by my audience's laughter. Because one of the people in the audience had just returned from Zimbabwe, the dialogue ended up being about how I should have been at the border of South Africa and Zimbabwe in February/early March to witness the experiences fellow Zimbabweans go through daily. If I had been there, she said, I would have written a novel. I said, don't worry, another Zimbabwean writer, Christopher Mlalazi, has already written a novel, Many Rivers, to be released in May by Lion Press Ltd (UK. He does a good job of portraying the struggles of Zimbabweans in South Africa as they cross endless rivers for opportunities.
So then I read another paragraph, and everyone was impressed by the fact that although the book was written in English,it manages to read like a Shona or Ndebele book in parts. Is the writer a bad writer? Is that his English? Did he self-publish?
The writer knows English, I explained. He won a Caine Prize for one of his short stories in English, and it is the title story of Seventh Street Alchemy, a collection of prize-winning short stories. It is available on Amazon. And, yes, if you know Shona or Ndebele, you can have direct access to the mind of the narrator, and you may laugh, often at him (because we laugh at each other's English). As to the writer being a bad one, oh no, far from it. So then why? Who would publish such a book where the narrator speaks in Shonglish? This one was done by Random House (through Jonathan Cape). You are kidding, right? Actually, no. Look here....
I read another sentence, the one in which the narrator sees newspaper headlines featuring Mugabe on the front cover and he insists, there in London, on calling him His Excellency:"The paper say Zimbabwe has run out toilet paper. That make me imagine how many times of bum wiping with the ruthless and patriotic Herald newspaper, everyone's troubled buttock holes get vex and now turn into likkle red knots."
There is really something wrong with this Shonglish-speaking narrator, someone in the room says. You got that right:there is really something wrong with the mind of Harare North's narrator. You can call him schizo, psychotic, DID, multi-personality, alter-ego.... Really? Yes, call him Anything-goes and expect anything from him, even his unique use of language, some stuff we as Zimbabweans may not even recognize. So this writer is like Marechera then? Well, he has been labeled as such, but when the world reads this novel, minds may change; he may finally attain his own position in Zimbabwean literature as himself. You are kidding, right? No; perhaps now it's time we move beyond Marechera. That man was something else though, wasn't he? Oh yes, he was, and still is. You know about the conference at Oxford University in May?
Soon we are eating sadza and the tough chicken that can only be found at the Chinese Supermarket, the one we have eaten for over ten years because it tastes like home. Harare North now sits content on a coffee table, not quite forgotten yet. I will bring it back on the next visit.
I want Zimbaweans to get in the culture of reading for pleasure. I want to go to African book signings and greet many African readers there. Zimbabwean writers are producing high-quality literature which needs to find Zimbabwean readers ready. There is just a lot in these books that we can't afford to miss, to understand what the Zimbabwean situation was and is really about. Of course, we know what it is about, but when you read it in a short story, or a novel, there is a way of looking at it that you may not have thought about, or seen. And what's refreshing is that what you will see in the good stories is art just being art, pleasing you.
One of the listeners at another gathering, an African accountant, once told me that the problem with African literature is that it is too political, that it covers in Zimbabwe what already happened in Nigeria, or Angola, so there is nothing new to expect in the African novel. Minus the politics, it's not literature.
Not anymore.
The new names cropping up are taking the literature to new heights; and this literature is gripping the attention of readers everywhere. We are expanding to all kinds of genres, challenging you, entertaining you, and, ultimately, giving you a moment to escape in the worlds we have represented. And even if it were political, remember it is not going to be political in the way a newspaper report will be; it will show you why it cannot help but be political, if it insists on being political. Sometimes, a story just has to be....
As I was saying, the narrator of Harare North introduces a new chapter in African literature.
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