Silencing silence and resisting repression

In 2005 was London’s Africa Year, and across the city were plenty of cultural events reflecting the rich variety of African arts, crafts, music, film and literature. Coincidentally in Zimbabwe’s turbulent history, this was the year of the government-led 'Murambatsvina: Operation Cleanup' that displaced thousands of urban dwellers and informal businesses. As can be expected, this generated a lot of mixed international publicity and at the Africa conferences and talks I attended in London at this time, all roads of discussion led to Zimbabwe in one way or another. Sentiments expressed were not always the most positive or easy to hear for a die-hard patriot like me; critics and scholars of literature said the Zimbabwean scene was stagnant; gone was the era of literary prizes and international fame comparable to the likes of the late Yvonne Vera, Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove and Dambudzo Marechera.

‘They’ – I anonymously refer to this collective body of public figures, academic and social literary commentators – dubbed this a ‘period of literary silence’, considering there had not been any novels as internationally successful as the late Vera’s The Stone Virgins in 2002. Yet writers like Brian Chikwava, Virginia Phiri and Julius Chingono were producing work that earned international critical acclaim.

Vera’s death left a great void in African literature no writer could ever or should be expected to fill. But her death signified an important loss in the Zimbabwean literature, which had already been affected by the diminishing popularity of the once-renowned Zimbabwe International Book Fair. Due to political and economic reasons the focus shifted to the Cape Town Book Fair, which was first held in June 2005. This ‘period of literary silence’ was also due to the repressiveness of the state which made it difficult to write and the extreme economic turmoil which, ‘they’ said meant the prospect of profiting from writing were very bleak and the publishing industry was on its last legs, thus adding to the ‘period of literary silence’. And so the analyses continued, damning Zimbabwe to literary obscurity, while hailing the Kenyans and Nigerians among whom prolific and important writers like Binyawanga Wainana, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Helon Habila made groundbreaking international success.

In 2006 Zimbabwe’s literary scene showed signs of life, alive and well. The veteran Shimmer Chinodya wrote the 2007 Noma Award winner Strife and the long-awaited sequel to Nervous Conditions, The Book of Not, was published by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Newcomer Valerie Tagwira boldly wrote about the 2005 urban cleansing in The Uncertainty of Hope, while publishing houses Weaver Press and ‘amaBooks continued to release their collections of short stories despite the difficult economic conditions faced in Zimbabwe. At the conferences and book releases I attended in 2006 and 2007, critics certainly seemed to have been appeased. Zimbabwe was slowly returning to the scene as an important literary voice and it is here in the diaspora that it was speculated more stories on contemporary Zimbabwe would emerge. Having the political freedom, necessary critical distance and funding to write about home at this point in our modern history are, in my view, important ingredients that would lead to the rise of Zimbabwean diaspora writing.

Enter Brian Chikwava and Petina Gappah.

In April of 2009 both of these writers released their individual texts. Harare North, by Brian Chikwava, is a tale of a ‘paper-free’ immigrant who comes to the UK and claims asylum. Yet ironically in Zimbabwe, the migrant was part of the ruling party’s 'Green Bombers' who were instrumental in the political violence against the opposition MDC and the violent seizure of farms. Cleverly written in first-person narrative, Chikwava tells of the unnamed narrator's experiences in London, commonly known to Zimbabweans as Harare North because of the long history of large numbers of Zimbabweans who have gone to live and work there.

Chikwava’s comedic tale experiments with private voice and language to capture the immigrant experience of London. Arriving at Gatwick Airport as an asylum seeker, the narrator makes it past immigration to meet his cousin in-law. This first encounter shows how family changes when abroad, as he is made to feel very unwelcome at the home of his cousin Paul and Paul's wife, Sekai. Sekai’s manner toward him is so cold that he describes her 'a lapsed African'. Becoming increasingly aware he is an imposition and eager to fulfil his mission to raise £3,000 so he can return to Zimbabwe and live comfortably, he leaves Paul’s home in search of work and finds his way to Brixton where he meets Shingi who works as a carer or a BBC ('British Bottom Cleaner').

In this share-flat, the main characters of the novel are low-income earners who live on the margins of Britain’s middle-class society in the ghettoes of Brixton, where they work as fish 'n' chip shop workers, porters and hair shampooists and braiders. The most striking thing about these characters is the familiarity of their conditions. Many Zimbabweans and immigrants of other nations work in intensive labour low-paying jobs and suffer multiple, inter-connected forms of social discrimination that Chikwava’s novel brilliantly portrays. As the story unfolds, the somewhat good-intentioned narrator changes and the witty and humorous tone of the novel shifts to an embittered critique on the individual, and the collective circumstances which led to his demise.

There is much to be said on this novel as it offers a solid, yet complex and engaging critique on politics, class, family and illegal migrants. As a novel about Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans in London, this, in my view, is a book critics and commentators have been waiting for. It speaks boldly and critically about the political breakdown in Zimbabwe while simultaneously addressing the brutal conditions awaiting those that seek refuge in the borders of 'Harare North'. This is one book that will ‘end’ the ‘period of silence’ in Zimbabwean literature. But if there are any more voices of uncertainty and doubt, An Elegy for Easterly by Pettina Gappah will put those to rest. This collection of short stories show a star is rising in Zimbabwean and world literature.

An Elegy for Easterly is a collection of thirteen tales about life in Zimbabwe that offers an intimate view of the everyday lives of ordinary people. Each of the stories shows how people survive in the hyper-inflationary, politically volatile and plagued society we are often (rightly or wrongly) told is Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. This text shows the survival strategies people use in order to live from day to day. Despite the mass exodus of Zimbabweans to neighbouring countries and abroad since 2000, it is not everyone who can or wants to leave.

For as many reasons that people left Zimbabwe, there were as many reasons to stay and make life work as best one could. This, in my reading of Gappah’s book, seems to be strongest message: That life must go on in Zimbabwe. Despite the harsh conditions faced, people still live and they have triumphs and tribulations just like anyone else in any other part of the world. This is evident in the characters of Mai Toby who sews for a living in An Elegy for Easterly and Emily in The Annexe Shuffle, who is a promising, ambitious university student who has some deep psychological issues.

Gappah courageously tables issues that often produce deathly silences when raised among strangers for fear of persecution as one never knows to whom they are expressing their political opinion. The opening tale, At the Sound of the Last Post is about the state funeral of a top government official. Instead of speaking about the deceased’s contribution to the party and country, the fictional Prime Minister uses this as an opportunity to launch into an onslaught of the West and its colonising mission. This is a direct criticism of President Mugabe, which may be alarming and problematic for reader. It is problematic because this story reads as banal, nothing is left to the reader’s imagination and the political is at the fore of this story. In ‘In the Heart of the Golden Triangle’, it takes over the stories so much that their creative potential is not exploited.

This no-holds barred depiction has already sparked controversy among readers and writers who are Mugabe loyalists and staunchly defend the strange mix of nationalism and barbarism his pan-African-Marxist agenda has descended into. In my view, a split of polar opposites among readers is inevitable, with those who will and have read Gappah’s bluntness as anti-patriotic, reiterating the anti-West rhetoric of Mugabe.

On the other hand there are those who will hail Gappah’s efforts and use a novel in their literary analyses to further construct the binary between Mugabe/Tsvangirai, bad/good and in their selective reading, continue the stereotype that only dishonest or Zanu PF affiliated people are successful in Zimbabwe.

This would also be a gross misreading of the novel and the middle-ground needs to be drawn between these two camps. A sensible, impartial reading of this novel is necessary; all agendas aside and an appreciation of the fictional struggles faced and overcome, assessing the varying ways in which they provide mirror real life in present-day Zimbabwe.

As critical reflections of Zimbabwe, there are many parallels and comparisons to be drawn between Chikwava’s novel and Gappah’s short stories. Gappah challenges the absolutism of nationalist rule from the external perspective of non-ZANU supporters. Chikwava, on the other hand, provides an internal, fictive account of the brainwashed mindset of Mugabe’s youth militia. He writes in the voice of a former Green Bomber, who, as events unfold, begins to see – albeit unwillingly – the betrayals of the nationalist Third Chimurenga struggle.

As a literary critic with a vested interest in African literature, I sincerely hope these writers will be read, if not for anything else, to re-ignite critics' and readers' interest in the Zimbabwe (and its diaspora) and to confirm that the country remains a literary powerhouse on the Continent and its borders beyond.

* Tendai Marima is a Zimbabwean currently undertaking a PhD in Zimbabwean women's writing at Goldsmiths, University of London.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.