Zimbabwean Writing: Reviews, Interviews, News, and Stories
The new issue of African Writing Online is out.It is so rich that I need a whole weekend to enjoy it. This issue features Petina Gappah (A review and a long interview), Brian Chikwava (a review and an interview), and there is the award-winning story by Ivor Hartmann, "Mr Goop". In addition to the Zimbabwean writers, there are other high-quality writings by other African writers: poetry, more reviews, short stories, and so on.
Sarudzayi Barnes, founder of Lion Press Ltd, reports success. Waterstones Bookstore is now going to carry Lion Press publications. New books are coming out, and the number of writers continues to grow: A C Moyo, Ignatius Mabasa, David Mungoshi, Memory Chirere, Chris Mlalazi, and many others, are scheduled to publish with Lion Press. This is a timely opportunity for these writers, who have so much to say, so much expected, but cannot find publishers easily in Zimbabwe.
I just received my first copy of a Lion Press book and I was impressed by the quality (the editing, design,etc). The book is entitled African Folktales for Children, by Jonathan Masere, who writes as Uncle Blenblen. The stories feature animal characters like goat, hare, baboon and hyena, and they cover a wide-range of themes. These stories are informative about culture and they offer life lessons to children and adults alike. Handled through the exceptional story-telling and humorous voice of Uncle Blenblen, who has a good command of English, the stories come to life.
Reviews of these Zimbabwean writers continue to pour out, with Gappah and Chikwava leading the pack in media attention. I listened to the Strand interview of Petina Gappah in which she read from the "Mupandawana Dancing Champion" and I liked how she made it clear that her stories are not just an indictement of the Zimbabwe government, but they also depict both the weaknesses and strengths of the Zimbabwean society in general, a society which has it weak spots like any society. The function of literature is to help us understand something specific about the human condition, to enable us to see ourselves even in the strangest of stories. These stories are just that--attempts to depict an aspect of our humanity.
Readers bring expectations to books; in fact, meaning in a literary work begins at the contact of story and reader. This may explain the idiosyncratic (often shallow)nature of some of the reviews that have been written about Harare North and An Elegy for Easterly, reviews that focus only on the political situation of Zimbabwe. One reviewer even entitled his review of both Chikwava and Gappah's books "Mocking Mugabe...." Another reviewer mispelled Shingi (leading character in Harare North)three times and presented it as Shinge. Another wrote "Harare North is what Zimbabweans call London" when what seems to have been meant was "London is what Zimbabweans call Harare North". Of course, this generalization does not leave room for the possibility that some Zimbabweans will learn for the first time (by reading the novel) that there is a part of London (Brixton) that some Zimbabweans (especially those fictional ones in the novel)call "Harare North".
So you sit there thinking, is this all that the reviewers are getting out of these works? Then you remember that the horrors in Zimbabwe are so fresh in people's minds that any trace of them in the new literature will be pounced upon as some kind of "You see? It's all in here". And, indeed, it's all in there, but it's not all that's in there.
Of course, you don't sit there complaining--you end up appreciating the fact that the review is still a review, one person's understanding or misreading of the story. As things look, these new publications are here to stay, and the depth of the responses will increase with time.
This is something I have noticed in teaching Tsitsi Dangarembga and Chinua Achebe in the United States. Students' first responses tend to be emotional and dismissive, but as the semester progresses, and we are deep in the world of the novels, the students begin to understand the complexity of the work, and often I end up receiving research papers written by new advocates of Tambudzayi (Nervous Conditions) and Okonkwo (Things Fall Apart)'s causes. And this is in the classroom, where there is time to read and understand the works and their nuances.
Unfortunately, media reviews, often produced under strict deadlines,anchor on first impressions. Pre-readings, really.
Sarudzayi Barnes, founder of Lion Press Ltd, reports success. Waterstones Bookstore is now going to carry Lion Press publications. New books are coming out, and the number of writers continues to grow: A C Moyo, Ignatius Mabasa, David Mungoshi, Memory Chirere, Chris Mlalazi, and many others, are scheduled to publish with Lion Press. This is a timely opportunity for these writers, who have so much to say, so much expected, but cannot find publishers easily in Zimbabwe.
I just received my first copy of a Lion Press book and I was impressed by the quality (the editing, design,etc). The book is entitled African Folktales for Children, by Jonathan Masere, who writes as Uncle Blenblen. The stories feature animal characters like goat, hare, baboon and hyena, and they cover a wide-range of themes. These stories are informative about culture and they offer life lessons to children and adults alike. Handled through the exceptional story-telling and humorous voice of Uncle Blenblen, who has a good command of English, the stories come to life.
Reviews of these Zimbabwean writers continue to pour out, with Gappah and Chikwava leading the pack in media attention. I listened to the Strand interview of Petina Gappah in which she read from the "Mupandawana Dancing Champion" and I liked how she made it clear that her stories are not just an indictement of the Zimbabwe government, but they also depict both the weaknesses and strengths of the Zimbabwean society in general, a society which has it weak spots like any society. The function of literature is to help us understand something specific about the human condition, to enable us to see ourselves even in the strangest of stories. These stories are just that--attempts to depict an aspect of our humanity.
Readers bring expectations to books; in fact, meaning in a literary work begins at the contact of story and reader. This may explain the idiosyncratic (often shallow)nature of some of the reviews that have been written about Harare North and An Elegy for Easterly, reviews that focus only on the political situation of Zimbabwe. One reviewer even entitled his review of both Chikwava and Gappah's books "Mocking Mugabe...." Another reviewer mispelled Shingi (leading character in Harare North)three times and presented it as Shinge. Another wrote "Harare North is what Zimbabweans call London" when what seems to have been meant was "London is what Zimbabweans call Harare North". Of course, this generalization does not leave room for the possibility that some Zimbabweans will learn for the first time (by reading the novel) that there is a part of London (Brixton) that some Zimbabweans (especially those fictional ones in the novel)call "Harare North".
So you sit there thinking, is this all that the reviewers are getting out of these works? Then you remember that the horrors in Zimbabwe are so fresh in people's minds that any trace of them in the new literature will be pounced upon as some kind of "You see? It's all in here". And, indeed, it's all in there, but it's not all that's in there.
Of course, you don't sit there complaining--you end up appreciating the fact that the review is still a review, one person's understanding or misreading of the story. As things look, these new publications are here to stay, and the depth of the responses will increase with time.
This is something I have noticed in teaching Tsitsi Dangarembga and Chinua Achebe in the United States. Students' first responses tend to be emotional and dismissive, but as the semester progresses, and we are deep in the world of the novels, the students begin to understand the complexity of the work, and often I end up receiving research papers written by new advocates of Tambudzayi (Nervous Conditions) and Okonkwo (Things Fall Apart)'s causes. And this is in the classroom, where there is time to read and understand the works and their nuances.
Unfortunately, media reviews, often produced under strict deadlines,anchor on first impressions. Pre-readings, really.
Comments
Fire burn!!!!