adminBeaven Tapureta Bookshelf
Zimbabwe boasts of many famous living or departed figures in the arts and culture sector but only countable biographies of these outstanding achievers exist. Although the power of fiction or poetry cannot be underestimated, writers seem to have shunned biography writing which is a very demanding type of non-fiction best described as ‘‘writing a life’’. ‘
A biography, defined as a story of a person’s life written by someone (a biographer) other than that person, creates a full, accurate image of the person being written about. Biography also presents the biographer’s objective opinion about the ‘‘subject’’, usually a known figure who would have greatly achieved in any field of life, benefiting more people.
A biography is different from autobiography in the sense that the latter is a story of a person’s life written by that person.
When the controversial biographical book about music superstar Oliver Mtukudzi titled ‘‘Tuku Backstage’’ written by veteran journalist Shepherd Mutamba was launched early this year, fellow artists and others came to the realisation that when an artiste’s life is chronicled on paper as biography, it presents another image either closely related or far removed from the image that people usually have of the same person.
Yet in any biographical work, a large amount of research and objectivity is an essential requirement. For instance, letters to and from the subject, interviews with the subject and/or others, memories, books about the subject, diaries and journals, all these sources of information need not be ignored. Writing a biography is indeed not like writing a short story, or poem!
Now that the book ‘‘Tuku Backstage’’ is a published product, it is at the disposal of readers to talk about it. No wonder it made lots of noise as some readers felt the book did not represent the right image of the great artiste whom they so much admire and respect. The book revealed certain aspects of Mtukudzi’s personality, though too hard to swallow for his fans.
Some of the headlines that beamed in the local newspapers about the book include “Mixed Reactions to Mutamba’s Tuku Backstage”, “Tuku Backstage: When Dog Bites Master”, “Tuku Backstage Strips Off Musician” and “Is This Tuku’s Real Biography?”
One angry blogger even said “Tuku Backstage is Garbage”! What could have attracted such a response to a book about a legendary artiste?
However, the author’s bias or opinion of who Tuku actually is as presented in the biography seemed to have irked his fans and yet that is what biographies sometimes do.
The question is: Is ‘‘Tuku Backstage’’ a biography? Does it capture Tuku’s upbringing? Readers would want to answer themselves! If all the people (relatives, friends and associates) interviewed by the biographer told their sincere side of the story, and enough research done, where then could Mutamba have missed the point?
In local literature, apart from the late writer Dambudzo Marechera whose life’s story almost everybody in the book industry knows, there are only tributes and not complete biographies of our renowned authors especially the first generation of writers whose legacies are valuable in shaping our literature.
One of our elderly writers once told a group of writers his upbringing and he pointed out that he once played soccer, even missed penalties! Football was not his calling, he said.
This is beautiful material for biographers. The value of such memories is in the inspiration they give to the youth and future writers who may find themselves in similar boy/girlhood career confusion. They are not only an inspiration, but also a heritage.
“Petal Thoughts: Yvonne Vera” (2008, Mambo Press) is a touching biographical tribute to the late great Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera. It was put together by Vera’s mother Ericah Gwetai who narrates her life story from the day she, seventeen years old then, discovered that she was pregnant with a child who would become a world-renowned author.
Unlike fiction which her daughter wrote and which draws largely from the imagination, “Petal Thoughts” narrates incidents that really happened and people who actually lived and who one way or the other had an impact upon Vera’s childhood to adulthood until her death.
The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 is mainly Vera’s mother story hinged on her experience as a mother and guide to the late prolific writer.
The second part has more than twenty memoirs by different people who knew Vera at various levels. There are also interviews which Ericah Gwetai conducted that reveal Yvonne’s character.
“Petal Thoughts” is a two-in-one book, that is, it is partly biography and partly tribute.
The value of a biography is perhaps made clear by John Mpofu, a lecturer at Zimbabwe Open University, who, in his endorsement of “Petal Thoughts”, said “Any student, scholar who wants to appreciate and analyse Yvonne’s literary works, needs to read this biography. A gift to the literary world.”
The cost of writing complete biographies of Zimbabwean first and second generation of writers may be high but it would serve the sector very well to start with a few small steps now. Real biographies take long to be completed because of the huge demands this kind of writing make.
Online Reporter