Weaver Press

WORLD LITERATURE REVIEW
Writing Now More Stories From Zimbabwe. Irene Staunton, ed. Harare Weaver 2005.

“ALWAYS USE THE WORD ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title,” advised Binyavanga Wainaina in a semi-serious  essay entitled “How  to write about Africa.” The authors collected together between the covers of Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe have all wisely eschewed the facile options thus offered. They write about aspects of the nation they know well, and they write as contributors to an intense, continuing dialogue.

A successor to Writing Still: New Stories from Zimbabwe (2003), the volume contains twenty-six  stories, most of which compel horrified concentration. Like the earlier collection, Writing Now brings together the hoary with the “budding”. The well established, such as Pat Brickhill, Shimmer Chinodya, John Eppel, and Charles Mungoshi, stand in alphabetical ranking with such “newcomers” as Lawrence Hoba, born in 1983, and Christopher Mlalazi, who is better known for theatre work. Brian Chikwava, represented here by a well observed, carefully crafted study of different sections of Harare society, “ZESA moto Muzhinji,” also provide continuity between the two books.

Where a preface might have been expected to give an overview, editor Irene Staunton has “Notes on Contributors.” The differences of age and the diversity of background indicated in the notes provide an appropriate preparation for the variety of work reproduced –  and also prepare for the relative lack of deeply rooted black female perspectives. Brickhill, who grew up in Durban, and Vivianne Ndlovu, born in Northern Ireland, account for two out of the five women in this “broadly Zimbabwean” collection. Variety is certainly present in the different approaches to writing “stories” on display, with Albert Gumbo’s use of a sting-in-the-tail  narrative style singling him out as the most obvious adherent of a particular “school” of short story writers.

In a self-conscious, reflective, sophisticated, pseudo “work-in-progress” piece about post colonial anomalies, Rory Kilalea writes: “In Zimbabwe, people measure time in a different way. ‘Just now’  means ‘sometime soon.’ ‘Now, Now’ means ‘immediately.’” While short stories are often quick reactions to pressing issues, volumes of stories, especially if they are as carefully proofread and well bound as Writing Now, take time to get into circulation. This collection has largely avoided that problem. Perhaps, thanks to a UK company that offers print-on-demand services, it manages to take the reader behind recent news reports from a troubled nation, illuminating the state of a deeply divided, desperately misled society. The collection has an immediacy that allows it to qualify as “Writing Now, Now.”

Wainaina concludes the essay quoted from above with the admonition: “Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissance. Because you care.” In Zimbabwe, there is no one like Mandela to listen to, and artists find no promises in rainbows. However, the writers represented in Writing Now do “care,” and, supported by Weaver Press, they share their diverse concerns – and anger – on a level that is both mature and intimate. There is no renaissance, but there are signs here of worthwhile resistance.                  
James Gibbs
University of the West of England