Weaver Press

Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe
edited by Irene Staunton
2005: (pp: 304) 205 x 135 mm
ISBN: 177922043X


Zimbabwe Netzwerk Rundbrief
No. 49, December, 2006

Reviewer: Annelie Klother

For the second time since 2003 Irene Staunton of Weaver Press has edited a collection of short stories. This new volume is called Writing Now and follows the much lauded Writing Still. We get a fascinating and sophisticated inside view of today's Zimbabwe. The collection won a prize from the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association in 2006.

Today, whenever people talk about Zimbabwe, they focus on the daily struggle for survival during a period of the economic collapse (251 million per cent inflation in July), the suffocating anxieties under dictatorship, the chaos of land reform, problems with AIDS, violence within families, etc., but they also reflect on the laid-back attitude and sense of humour of the Zimbabwean people – and so it is with the stories in Writing Now. Twenty-eight very different male and female authors, newcomers and recognized writers, describe and reflect on life in the suburbs as well as in the rural areas, the suffering and the hopes of young and old Zimbabwean men and women.

Economic need …
In several stories the authors use a magnifying glass to explore how the catastrophic economic situation can affect relationships within families: When Siphiwe in '''Pay Day Hell'' (Christopher Mlalazi) slept with her husband, Doubt, for the first time, it was because she hoped to get food from him. For the same reason she secretly makes love with her neighbour. She dreams of a European lifestyle and tries to influence her son to accept her point of view. Doubt feels despised by her: yet, being unemployed, he cannot support his family, which increases his sense of desperation.

Difficulties over the break down of traditional gender roles are also the theme of 'The Breadwinner' (Ethel I. Kabwato). Ted leaves his lover, because he cannot stand, that she, the 'Breadwinner', keeps nagging him. He feels as if he has become her property. Shimmer Chinodya describes a man, who admires his mistress because she is intelligent, generous and warm-hearted. However, he cheats on her and finally leaves her because he has nothing to offer her because of his difficult situation.

Whatever people do to each other, their behaviour is related to the conditions surrounding them, although this is not the only determining factor. And thus the book is honest in reflecting the complexities of relationships rather than reductionist: the situation in Zimbabwe is but one of a number of issues.

For example, Pat Brickhill ('Ndakayambuka') and Stanley Mupfuza ('Forever haunted by Rita's Eyes') deal with the rape of young women. Brickhill writes from the point of view of a teenager who, without being forced, finally marries her rapist, who proceeds to brutally exploit her. Mupfudza allows us to explore the feelings of a man who, as an adolescent, cheated on his girlfriend and caused her to be gang raped – an event that will continue to haunt him throughout his life.

… does not explain every cruelty.
In Andrew Aresho' story 'Rukudzo', a women beats up her husband who is cheating on her and cynically neglecting his family. We learn this from her son, who is fascinated by the club that his mother uses to mistreat her husband and his lover. The woman's relatives are rather amused when the woman boasts about it. Her despair only becomes obvious later on. The reader is torn between disgust and understanding. In 'These are the Days of our Lives' (Edward Chinhanhu) we discover Freedom's motives but this doesn't make it any better. The young man is looking for alcohol and sex in the shebeens, because he can no longer bear his own situation. His wife is traumatised, after having been brutally beaten up by the Botswana police. She is apathetically sitting at home, while the children have nothing to eat. The story focuses on the Zimbabwean situation: after unsuccessfully roaming about the country, Freedom returns depressed to his desperate family, and listens to the news or rather propaganda: there is enough maize, the British are to blame for everything that's gone wrong, and a bumper harvest is expected …

Repression and political disaster…
The political events are also apparent in 'The Letter' (Farai Mpofu), a distressing contribution. A Ndebele member of the opposition who had been forced to watch his pregnant mother being murdered flees to Botswana, where he is maltreated by soldiers and has to leave the country, although he found a woman there – who had been forced to deny him …

Some stories examine the personal impact of the fast-track land reform programme. Lawrence Hoba depicts a world seen through the eyes of a little boy, who does not understand what is going on, as his family has to leave the farm they had supposedly been given ('The Trek'). Vivienne Ndlovu, in 'Kurima', explores the failure of a farm occupation from the new owner's point of view. When leaving the farm he meets homeless small-scale farmers who have been evicted from their new land because 'a secretary of the minister' is claiming it. Corruption and favouritism are also targeted in 'Living on Promises and Credit' (Ambrose Musiyiwa). A critical young teacher fails because of the local authorities, who want to enrich themselves.

In 'Space' (Chiedza Musengezi) politics form the background to her story: the director of a prison is watching television on Independence Day. The speaker is talking about masses of spectators, but the screen is showing empty terraces. The prison that she is managing is far worse than in Germany: narrower, more primitive and with very bad health care. But the prison boss, whose logic is that the prison 'is not a hotel' could also exist in Germany.

Again and again, bridges are built between our two cultures: we Germans know well, for example, the type of manager who is as slippery as an eel – 'The High Flyer' by Mzana Mthimkhulu – who pays the price for sacking an old worker who has been with the firm for thirty years, so pushing him into poverty. We also recognise the bigot in William Saidi's conceited professor ('A Fine Day for a Funeral') who, although he is apparently adopting western customs, aggressively refuses to accept a son-in-law from Malawi.

And in 'ZESA Moto Mushinji', Brian Chikwava describes the well-known relationships between social classes: the 'Garden Boy', Ngoni, is treated by the new rulers in the same way as the old ones treated him: he has to be servile and work a lot for very little money. But like a ''Schweijk'', he has innumerable evasive tricks up his sleeve. Comically he employs the acronym for the Zimbabwean Electricity Supply Authority, ZESA, instead of calling on his ancestors for assistance. He calls himself 'Fire' and he smokes joints all day long.

…. are leading to escape or revolt?
'Gold Digger' by Albert Gumbo is not the only story in the collection to exploit the humour of situations. His story examines another form of escape: emigration. The story plays with the stereotypes that Blacks and Whites have of each other. A Black boy wants to get a tourist visa into a European country by trying to infiltrate himself into the affections of a white tourist girl. His behaviour towards her is based on clichés about wooing white women: he must smell a bit strong, act a little stupid, express his hatred for George Bush and his love for wild animals … Meantime, her behaviour mirrors his, as she has also arrived with her own clichéd attitudes and beliefs.

Only one story deals with revolt – an indication, perhaps, of the seemingly infinite patience of Zimbabweans. 'Tables turned Over' (Adrian Ashley) dissects an uprising in an impressive manner: the pregnant young market woman Ruth is involved in looting, although she is a timid person and fears for her baby. At the end she finds herself in a demonstration asking: 'How can things change if we don't play a part? How can things get better if we don't change them?' The story shows, how a revolt can develop, if the people have built up enough rage and despair.

(Thanks to Klaus Graichen for helping me to translate this review into English!)

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