Crying Content in Contemporary Zimbabwean Fiction

In 2008 I blogged about how the hardships in Zimbabwe had inspired some more courageous, risk-taking writing. Writers with much to say were emerging in bigger numbers than ever before, it seemed. I predicted that this new literature would reveal a lot about what had been, and was still, happening in the country. I even declared that the true story, which could not be found on CNN or BBC, would finally come to light. I was aware that what seemed inexplicable in real life, the complexities the media could not capture, would find expression in art, that new and interesting voices would emerge, not to replace the old ones, but to add to the diversity of the literary landscape of Zimbabwe. And I was right: since then, some important writers have emerged: Petina Gappah, Brian Chikwava, NoVioet Bulawayo, Christopher Mlalazi, and many others. The short fiction anthologies published by amaBooks and Weaver Press bear witness to what has come to be called Zimbabwe's "lost decade".  I can say that there is a lot more work by writers who have not had a chance at publication, stories that chronicle the country's hard moments and contribute to our understanding of the complexities of the human condition. In other words, as a fiction student of mine once commented in a guest lecture by Christopher Mlalazi in 2010, "You guys seem never to run out of stuff to write about, and that stuff is interesting." And yes, the active Zimbabwean literary scene continues to show this, and I will predict again that there's a lot more where that's coming from.

Content is definitely the urgent driving factor in much of contemporary Zimbabwean writing and in the themed collections coming out of the country: Writing Free, Where to Now? Long Time Coming, and many others. Perhaps content is always a driving factor, with art coming later, but I am thinking in terms of there being much to write about in the now, much to capture...you get the feeling that some of the stories don't want to wait until the dust settles down; the stories seem to have an urgent purpose to bear witness of what's been happening, and what's happening now. Some of the stories, of course, display high levels of craft, which sharply render this crying content; sometimes disguising the urgency, only to magnify it by the end of the story: it haunts you; it gives you nightmares...

There is a lot of content-driven fiction coming out of Zimbabwe.  Now this is not to say that the fiction, which I am not going to exemplify in this post (because it's only a blog post), lacks craft. Perhaps there are ways of making a preoccupation with content alone become, in a way, a major part of the craft. Too bad I am not giving examples (because it's only a blog post), but I see an interesting dynamic here. Someone who has been following the Zimbabwean crises (because there have been many of such, except at least one Zimbabwean I know who argues that there has not been a single crisis in Zimbabwe) will know that much has been lost in the last decade: opportunities for career growth in many industries and in the public sector, opportunities for education, dreams getting dashed or turned into nightmares, loss of important relatives, etc). Publishing itself has been affected greatly, which is why it makes sense to say that the full extent and diversity of what's been written cannot be represented fully by what's been put out so far.

I titled this post "The Cry[ing] of Content in Contemporary Zimbabwean Fiction" because I wanted to iniate dialogue on what we are writing and how. As we produce this urgent literature, are we thinking in terms of its impact to readers today and tomorrow? Is it the kind of literature that will last, or will it just be a period literature no one will forget soon after we regain our lost decade? Regain; how would we even regain a lost decade...it will always be a lost one, and will the fiction be lost with its decade? Now, let me answer my questions: First, the dacade has not been lost...the decade has happened, and it has changed life as we have known it in Zimbabwe. Along the way though (in the decade), some have lost themselves in activities they may not recover from, opportunities have been lost, growth has been stunted in many respects, children born in a world of diminishing opportunities, where the lure of lack is their reality, the normalized absurdities portrayed by some of the contemporary fiction.

 Second, as to the question of the durability of the fiction, its lasting impact, I can say that sometimes, if not always, writers really don't think of such things when in the middle of writing the story, when you let the story happen, when it possesses and tells you where it's going...The urgency then becomes not of content, but of capturing the words that can convey the content. Sometimes you wish you would just write without using words, to represent the story in its organicity...the urgency is in how language often lets you down, and quite often you feel like shooting out of the room and howl your story unbidden.

 Third, is this period literature? Perhaps the question should be, which one is not period literature? Should I ignore current issues and write about the 1980s, as I often do, I am still stuck in a period, so then I go futuristic on you, and the scream of periodicity may ring even louder, because now I am consciously crafting the story to capture the future credibly. So, okay, the question of whether or not these are just period pieces is not important and should be abandoned...perhaps until we actually trust the current definitions of period literatures.

The last question was on whether the literature will be lost with its decade? We don't know, and we shouldn't worry about that because even though the decade has come and gone, the experiences haven't gone with it; and some writers  will catch up with the events of the decade later and begin to write about them (They would be "writing free" and perhaps still asking, "where to now?"). And the ones covering the lost decade today may still be covering it tomorrow; and given a chance, some will be revising their stories from new angles.

The stories are pouring out, the content is crying. Each time I read those stories I want more of the same. I want to read about the diverse experiences carried in the stories; it's as if I am trying to get a full understanding of what was going on? I have a huge apetite for these stories, so I don't complain about how they only focus on the sad stories. I know some of what was going, a lot of what was going on, but I want to hear each cry (crying can be craft; it's okay to craft cries).

 I said the stories are "pouring out"; I must be talking about the tears coming out of them, not the rate at which the stories are coming out of presses. To some extent, the fact that they are not pouring out of presses is a good thing for now; that will allow some that may have come out too soon to simmer...for their writers to revisit them and deepen them a bit.. I have noticed that, increasingly, I am hesitant to share my content with prospective publishers (some may say it's the fear of rejection, while others may say that I have caught the Flannery O'Connor bug of hanging on to a story for as long as she could before sending or returning it to the editors, and in both cases they would be correct), but I have found out that the longer I keep the stories, the more I work on them, the more deeply distilled they become...I like that aging process...

Crying content. Wait until it's thought of as weeping... Then some would say it's screaming, others sobbing, a few more bawling: each cry will continue to gain grains of difference, each tear more nuanced, more subtlety in the sobbing and screaming. Increasingly, readers will begin to understand the craft in the crying content.