Index

The Uncertainty of Hope
Valerie Tagwira
368 pp
ISBN: 1 77922 063 9

Blog by Petina Gappah, a contributing author February, 2008


At last! Yesterday I received my three contributor's copies of Laughing Now, the new Weaver Press anthology. It was much smaller than I expected, but a real treat for all that. There is some cracking writing in here. I particularly liked the balance between the new voices and the established. Well known writers like Julius Chingono, Alexandra Fuller, Shimmer Chinodya, Daniel Mandishona, John Eppel and Rory Kilalea are joined by new writers, some of whom are already becoming well-known, like Diana Charseley, Edward Chinhanhu, Erasmus Chinyani, Albert Gumbo, Lawrence Hoba, Brian Jones, Bryony Rheam and yours truly.

I particularly enjoyed Chinhanhu's wonderfully titled The Chances and Challenges of Chiadzwa, and his omnicient authorial voice, which worked seamlessly for the story. Chinyani's Land of Starving Millionaires, the bitingly funny story of Baba vaAlphabet and his unruly brood, not to mention his money problems, made me laugh out loud. I loved Diana Charsley's cross-dressing Sidney, a vividly imagined and unusual character. Rory Kilalea is always excellent, I don't think anyone writing in Zim today writes dialogue like he does.

And as for Shimmer Chinodya's story: he may not agree, but I think the short story is a more natural fit for him that the novel. His Last Laugh has a manic quality that echoes the manic condition of these our Zimbabwean times. Ashes by John Eppel is imbued with the acerbity and shrewd observation you expect of Eppel. A side note here, I first read his novel The Giraffe Man when I was at university 15 years ago, and I could not believe that I had never heard of him before.

All the stories in the collection will be a pleasure to read again and again. I have a last special word for the sublime Julius Chingono: a million and five thank yous for a story in which a woman who trades sex for money is portrayed as a real person with reasoned and considered motivations for living the life she does, and not just as a symbol of our national degradation, or, worse still, a stereotypical tart with a big heart.

Congratulations to Irene Staunton and Weaver Press. Who said Zimbabwean writing was dead? I should also mention the cover art, which features the photography of Bester Kanyama. Growing up, I noticed that most of the Shona novels published by the Literature Bureau used his photographs on the front cover and credited him with these words: mufananidzo naBester Kanyama.

I did not ever imagine that I would one day feature in a book with his photography on the cover. What a thrill.


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