adminBeaven Tapureta : Bookshelf
By some dexterous hand of muse the latest Shona short story anthology “Makore Asina Mvura” (Bhabhu Books, 2015) arrived on my desk as a special guest I have been patiently waiting for. Frankly, reading “Makore Asina Mvura” made me ‘thirsty’ and somehow I read it looking for natural springs in the vast land of the authors’ creative imaginations.I gasped as each story hit me either front or back, upper or lower part of my mind, whatever! I fell in love for the umpteenth time with Shona language.
Sometimes I nearly broke down reading “Zviroto” by Monica Cheru-Mupambawashe, but other times I laughed, for instance at the narrator’s frantic efforts to pay back a huge debt in the story “Mahwani” by Setty Mhandu. The narrator in this story borrows money from vulture-eyed money-lenders to pay lobola for his beloved Noku and now is the time to pay back or lose property!
As you read through the stories, you are transported to different worlds with different characters doing different unbelievable things in different ‘desperate’ conditions!
The Zimbabwean socio-cultural situation is looked at from different unusual perspectives. Serious incursion is made into life’s challenges, alternating with humour as themes and the metaphor of ‘rainless clouds’ is handled with such promising authorial skill. Here is metaphor used at best!
In the story “Dzetse” by Noel Tsungai Marerwa, you are gripped by the extremity of hyperinflation and retrenchment but later you come out lungs swollen with laughter as Zondayi uses a bullfrog as a supernatural creature and frightens a certain miserly man with the intention of making him pay for a job Zondayi has done with his nephews!
But after reading “Zviroto” by Monica Zodwa Cheru-Mupambawashe and knowing that the author is the only woman in the anthology, I felt something, not about her story, not at all, but something about the collection made me curious.
Her story, “Zviroto” is in first person perspective, and story is happening ‘now’. It resonates with the pangs of loss, rape, anger and forgiveness.
Imagine a man rapes your mother, impregnates her (and you are the unwanted pregnancy). Not able to stand the humiliation, your mother commits suicide after giving birth to you. After some years, the man who raped her comes back to you to ask for forgiveness. What would you say? Is he your father? Such is the situation of Tatenda in this touching story.
My feeling that there is something ‘amiss’ in “Makore Asina Mvura” kept nagging at the back of my mind.
The editor of the anthology and founder of Bhabhu Books, Ignitius T Mabasa, is one of the best Shona novelists Zimbabwe has ever had. I had to hear from him. How did it happen that the Shona anthology is dominated by male writers? I know my question may have sounded superficial but, like one Irish critic and commentator Nuala O’Falian who at some point long back asked if women writers counted in Irish literature, my probe was worthwhile. Do women writers count in Zimbabwean literature?
Why the apathy on the part of women when it comes to writing in Shona? Honestly, Zimbabwe Women Writers has done its best to promote and publish women voices in both English and Shona languages. However, outside zww the situation is not the same.
If one randomly picks out some current Shona anthologies, conspicuous is the domination by male writers. The 2016 NAMA nominated “Dzinonyandura: Svinga ReNduri” (2015) has five women poets out of seventeen contributors!
Mabasa was generous to add me to the Whatsapp group of “Makore Asina Mvura” authors. The issue of why there is only one female writer in the anthology (specifically one out of fifteen contributors) had already been discussed by the group.
Mabasa had said, “Although we have more than ten male writers in the anthology it is surprising that their stories deal with women’s issues in different ways.”
I asked if male writers can truly articulate the issues, emotions and voices of female characters with that ‘fellow feeling’.
Alois Sagota, in his story “Ndopabuda Here Apa?” adeptly captures an adverse economic situation prompting a widow to pray and work hard to see her son Tawanda and daughter succeed.
Tawanda, an academic genius, is embarrassed by soaring unemployment around him. However, at the end of the story I celebrated with her mother when he passes an interview for a job for which his own more experienced university lecturer, Mr Dzito, also vied for.
Sagota believes male writers are becoming ‘liberal and sounding women’s voices’, therefore people should not doubt the potential of men to articulate women’s issues. He is involved in productions for performances that address women and girl child concerns and he researches about their marginalization in society.
“This gender issue is neither any issue nor should it be a question,” he said.
Mupambawashe also sees nothing strange about men writing about women’s issues in their stories as some of them do so with much empathy.
But why are women apathetic to write in Shona language?
“I personally know women are doing well as writers in English. Could there be a language issue? In my case, this was the first attempt to write in Shona after much encouragement from Memory Chirere one of the few people who can deliver in Shona and English,” she says.
Mabasa, who ‘fathered’ the collection, said as a writer it is inspiration that chooses the language he writes in. “Mostly my stories come to me in Shona,” he says.
A number of authors in “Makore Asina Mvura” said quality was fundamental to their stories and indeed, soon as you get inside the book, you are met with authors ‘throwing and catching’ writing devices and themes skilfully and simultaneously. Their storytelling gifts in Shona language are just sharp.
In “Pedzisai” by Davison Mudzingwa, a childless couple separately approaches a n’anga for some muti to make them bear children. The title of the story is the name of this couple’s dream-child. Faith in traditional healing gets shaky when you realise that the n’anga takes advantage of the woman and impregnates her. Ironically, n’anga’s wrongdoing proves the woman’s husband is sterile and this truth just hurts him and he sends the woman packing!
“My thinking is that the discourse on gender equality has evolved from sex representation to issue representation. I wouldn’t mind about who dissects a societal issue as long as it is well articulated and advances the cause of equality,” says Davison Mudzingwa.
Obvious Dziwanyika, author of story “Ramangwana” says past anthologies like “Masimba” by ZWW catered for women only but with “Makore Asina Mvura”, the call was open for men and women. He does not see any problem if the editor selected stories on the basis of quality.
In “Makore Asina Mvura”, the fifteen stories scarcely dwell on the impact of real rainless clouds on humanity but they capture certain moments of drought in the lives of Zimbabwean characters and they do so with sincerity. The anthology is challenging in its compilation as well as in the issues it tackles.
Other writers in the anthology are Ali Simbi, Claudious Chiringa, Patrick Hwande, Tafadzwa Chaponda, Godfrey Muzondo, Tatenda Chinoda, Chenjerai Mazambani, Josiah Nyanda and Conarth Macheka.
Online Reporter