Online Reporter
Elliot Ziwira
At the Bookstore
In a world where curating perfect lives on glowing screens while private worlds crumble in silence, few books dare to ask the uncomfortable question: who repairs the repairman?
Who mends the healer when he is wounded, the counsellor when she is broken, and the parent when hope has drained from his or her eyes?
“A Roof to Repair”, a compelling collection of short stories by Memory Chirere, Nhamo Mhiripiri, Ruzvidzo Mupfudza, Joyce Mutiti and Lillian Masitera, steps boldly into this fragile terrain.
The book poignantly chronicles the experiences of families cracking under invisible pressures, of communities gnawed by hypocrisy, deceit, violence, superstition and betrayal.
Above all, it interrogates the erosion of hope in a society where even those entrusted with repair find themselves in desperate need of mending.
Hope, that indispensable ingredient in the recipe of existence, allows humanity to see beyond present predicaments. Without it, everything loses meaning. When socks tear, roofs leak, and vehicles stall, the knowledge that a repairman exists somewhere is comforting; someone with both tools and skill to restore function.
However, life’s vagaries sometimes dislodge not only our possessions, but our physical and emotional being as well. Hearts fracture and souls lose their will to endure. It is in such moments that we yearn for reassurance that all is not lost upon the wind.
What becomes of us when the repairman, who is often our own reflection, also lies broken?
The extended metaphor of repair in the stories frames this anthology.
Though it occasionally begs for deeper critical excavation, it remains accessible, with simple plots and user-friendly language that welcome a broad readership.
Through deft characterisation and evocative settings, the writers confront themes that define the post-colonial African condition, including moral paralysis, economic despair, generational conflict, misogyny, betrayal and the illusion of movement.
Individual characters drawn from the familial and national spectrum are given voice. These voices intermingle, forming a collective national discourse; a lamentation and, perhaps, a muted plea for restoration.
Marriage, as both sanctuary and prison, emerges prominently. Misogynistic characters expose the claustrophobic dimensions of unions built on pretence rather than truth.
Marriage, an institution meant for regeneration and harmony, becomes a theatre of quiet suffocation when cracks are ignored.
In “The Diners”, Mutiti captures relationships premised on hypocrisy as corrosive to both individual and societal ethos. Ester and Rudo, long-time friends, meet in a restaurant to update each other on the disrepair of their lives.
Rudo, who married young to escape poverty, confesses: “Sometimes I feel like a prisoner. I feel like screaming but I know I can’t start, coz once I start, I’ll never stop.”
She endures violence and chauvinism in the name of preserving the family unit, giving everything and receiving little. Her soul starves even as she clings to the physical presence of husband and children.
Ester, at 25, remains single in pursuit of a “relatively wealthy, handsome, charming, considerate and faithful” man.
Yet even as she performs puritanism, she sleeps with older men, masking loneliness with borrowed freedom. Both women inhabit structures of self-deception; they both require repair.
Pretence also animates Mhiripiri’s “The Fags”.
Paul’s secret smoking habit is exposed when he lights a cigarette before his mother. Tania, his wife, follows suit. The confrontation that ensues reveals layers of hypocrisy. When Paul angrily ejects his wife, his mother shocks him by producing her own pack of export-quality cigarettes.
“Free at last,” she sighs, urging him to bring Tania back. The scene unmasks generational pretensions and highlights a central truth: authenticity, however uncomfortable, is the first step toward mending.
Chirere, alongside Mupfudza and Masitera, turns to youths, who are the mirrors reflecting societal paralysis.
In “Sixteen”, Muchaneta hopes against hope that her HIV-positive mother and disillusioned father will recover their moral footing for the sake of their children’s dreams. Here, illness is not merely biological, but it is social and spiritual.
The roof leaks from within.
In “The Eyes of a Walk”, Mupfudza explores the extremes individuals embrace to escape poverty’s chokehold. Musafara seeks refuge in sex, alcohol and drugs, which are temporary anaesthetics against structural despair.
Sadly, this canal-vent escape breeds incest, rape and moral decay. Baba Sorry impregnates his cousin and marries her; Musafara’s sister, Zvaparara, is raped by her father.
Sex becomes pastime in a society starved of expectation, its consequences dismissed in the pursuit of fleeting sensation.
It is trite that when financial structures collapse, ethical ones often follow.
As the pages flip, duplicity extends beyond bedrooms into national memory.
Stories such as “A Roof to Repair”, “Heroes Day”, “Queen of Darkness” and “The Return” depict liberation memory and its aftermath.
The metaphor of a leaking roof acquires political overtones as unrepaired fissures pervade national psyche.
Masitera’s “Now I Can Play” confronts predatory masculinity with chilling clarity.
Nancy, drugged and raped by her former teacher Rex, discovers upon collecting her Ordinary-Level results that she is pregnant and infected with herpes.
The promise of marriage dissolves as Rex disappears.
Her attempt to procure an abortion from a traditional healer nearly subjects her to further exploitation when she is told the medicine must be administered through sex.
Haunted by memory, she flees, eventually ridding herself of the foetus through herbs discovered clinging to her clothes; a symbolic yet incomplete cleansing.
Her body may be purged, but the psyche remains bruised.
The possibility of herpes degenerating into something more malignant lingers like an unpatched crack in the ceiling.
Throughout the anthology, the family unit mirrors the community and nation. Paralysis within homes reflects stasis within the broader polity.
Youths drift without compass; parents cling to facades; institutions falter; and hope uncertainly flickers.
Yet the book’s power lies not in prescribing solutions, but in compelling recognition.
To repair a roof, one must first identify the leak. These stories hold up a mirror to our collective disrepair; our complicity in pretence, our tolerance of abuse, and our worship of empty appearances.
The reader soon discovers that the repairman is not a distant saviour but he lies within.
And, perhaps, therein lies the discomforting beauty of “A Roof to Repair”. The book refuses easy redemption arcs.
The roof remains precarious and the repairman lies momentarily forlorn. However, the very act of naming the cracks is itself a gesture toward restoration.
In today’s world, where economic uncertainties persist, where moral ambiguities multiply, and where trauma often hides behind curated smiles, this anthology feels urgently relevant.
Indeed, hope cannot be outsourced. Tools must sometimes be fashioned from broken pieces, and before we rush to mend others, we must confront the fractures within.
For, when the repairman needs to be repaired, the task of restoration becomes communal.
For an immersive reading experience, visit the Typocrafters (DigiHub) retail shop at Herald House, corner George Silundika Avenue and Sam Nujoma Street in Harare.
