The Pen And I

2010-09-28T11:36:00.001-07:00

Hop over to my 'new' (new ages with time) blog www.writerdelic.blogspot.com . The writer is ever struggling with reinvention. There is a refreshing in rebirth. Just like a book, we begin ourselves and end ourselves over and over, chapter after chapter. Functional dysfunctionality. Dysfunctional functionality. Crooked as they are, the pieces fit.

Writing About Writing

2010-09-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2009

I know there are many technicalities to the writing process, yet I have never been really conscious of them. I do what I would call ‘feely’ writing, ‘gut’ writing, as it were, much like a man stumbling in the dark and allowing himself to be led by some sixth sense. Or maybe that’s not quite right; more like a blind man, a man who has been blind throughout his life gets by with more gut :-). I ‘feel’ a story as I write. I ‘feel’ my way into it. And I ‘feel’ when I believe it’s just right, when I think the product is ready. That is how I have always worked. I have no formal ‘training’ or ‘education’ in the creative writing process, but I do intend, at some good measurable point in the future, to perhaps equip myself with something of a creative writing degree, as I think it will help improve my present stature. I say this because one of the most exciting events for me has occurred; I recently got launched into Story Time. It is a daunting and exciting thing, to have your work bared out, for other authors to read and turn over and scrutinise. So far I have had beautiful and encouraging comments about my story. It is indeed inspiring and encouraging to receive positive comments from established and wonderful writers such as Jude Dibia, for instance. And one of my favourite writers of the moment, Noviolet Mkha Bulawayo. It is indeed encouraging. What got me thinking about a creative writing degree at some point in the future, for instance, are the comments I received about my story. There was talk of pacing and language and point of view. Aspects, I then realised, I have never thought about when I am writing. I usually treat my writing as a sort of pilgrimage, a ‘faith mission’. I cannot tell you about how I chose my point of view and I have certainly never deliberated on pacing, but I ‘know’ what I am writing. I ‘feel’ my way through my writing. But now that my attention has been drawn to these aspects which build up a story, I feel the need to delve deeper into them.

I have had a number of interesting experiences re my writing. Like, one time, someone read my story ‘Big Pieces Little Pieces’ (currently on Story Time), and insisted that I had to have experienced what I was writing about, and would not be convinced otherwise. It was too vivid, he said. Some of the detail was too stark to be made up. Someone else, who read part of a story I wrote centred around an illegal immigrant living in South Africa, seemed to think I had experienced what I was writing about. This person went on to divulge some rather touching and personal information about themselves, believing I would be able to relate to it as I had gone through a ‘similar experience’. I did not know how to respond to this individual, as I had simply been writing fiction. I would just like to disagree with this notion that one should write stories related to his or her ‘experiences’, as this makes him or her write better. I do not think this is necessarily so. I believe the beauty of the fiction story is its allowance to explore unchartered territory, to convincingly ‘make believe’, as it were. I find that as I write ( and I guess I write what you would term ‘realist fiction’), I really get into a character, sit in his or her shoes, and for that moment, feel what he feels, express what he is. So far, I have not written a story that can be said to be auto- biographical, to be a relation to something I have, at least, directly experienced. But then I suppose there are sprinkles here and there of the familiar, used as a springboard to convincingly ‘make believe’ the not-so-familiar. I generally like to keep it fiction.

Writing has been many things to me; I used to do it without thinking about it (the beauty of being a child is that you do the things that come naturally to you without having the burden of having to consider the bigger picture :-) ) Perhaps inside I have always known. It was like something that was just a part of the horizon; I eat, I breathe I sleep, I write. But, and I guess like many significant things in life, there was a turning point, some pivot around which the moment had to turn, reshape itself into something more defined, something bigger. I dunno if all writers have such moments. I’m interested to know if they do, and what theirs were. My ‘moment’ came in the form of the astounding writer, Miss Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was mid 2007; I was just about to start my degree back home in Zimbabwe, at NUST (National University of Science and Technology). I had enrolled for a BscHons in Architecture. So I’m sitting watching BBC Hardtalk Extra one day and there is this interview with this writer, Miss-Chimamanda-Ngozi-Adichie-who-has-just-won-the-orange-broadband-prize-for-writing. So I’m listening, and it’s really interesting, Miss Adichie has all these views about Africa and her book is about some civil war that took place in Nigeria and from the sound of the interview, everybody’s making a fuss about it. It’s interesting enough for me to go and google her the next day.

This life story of this young writer who once pursued a degree in medicine and left it after two years to go to America and pursue her writing is just astounding to me. More so, her voice is unique, her writing voice is unique; I love the things she is talking about, writing about, amazing. Reality has just hit me. I write. I will write. I want to be a writer. I know all this, have always known all this. But. But. How? There is a journey to be travelled, I realise. But the ‘moment’ is not yet complete, is still making its pivot.

I read the synopsis of Half of a Yellow Sun. I’m in a frenzy. I have to read the book. I just have to get the book. I need to read this book. But wait a minute. Wait a minute. I’m in Zimbabwe. Everyday I walk past Kingstons Book Store and the book shelves stare back despondently at me. There is no way this book is available in Zimbabwe. I look up the book, see the price and the shipping costs, do my calculations, and quickly realise that, there is no way I will be able to afford this book. I have no VISA card or access to any of these complicated payment methods. But I need to read this book.

In a fit of excitement, I write an email to this writer I admire very much, frenzy-fan style, telling how her story inspires me, how I’m an aspiring writer and so-into-writing and I-need-to-read-her-book-but-I-can’t-afford-it-please-may-she-send-me-a-copy-please-please-please-oh-pretty-please. My friends are split to pieces. They are making fun of me. And I am laughing with them, because as I’m reading this email that I’ve sent, it really does sound like the crazy fan to me. Not composed, not cool, very much the crazy fan. No-one will take this email seriously. So I reprimand myself, think of all the corrections I ought to have made, and get on with life. But I’m checking my email as regularly as I can, just in case, you know :-). So there’s nothing for a while and so I kinda forget about it even though I’m a bit disappointed because I’m really itching to get my hands on that book.

Then one day. I’m sure you can guess what happens one day. I open my email and there it is, a reply from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Encouraging little me to write, and saying yes, she will send me a copy of her book, if only I will give her my address. To say I am over the moon is an understatement. Those two months, before I got the slip in the mail to go and collect my parcel at the Post Office, were the longest two months of my life. So here I am standing outside the Post Office clutching this book and loving the smell of fresh pages and feeling like something is happening. I dunno what it is, just something, you know. What a pretty cover. I’m vowing to myself I will look after this gift, this book should always look like this, so beautiful. And then I open the book and the-something-that-is-happening stops happening because the moment has completed its journey around the pivot.

Inside, the book- a signed copy- reads:

‘To Novuyo. With the hope that you will keep reading and writing. Chimamanda Adichie August 2007’.

The moment has completed its journey around the pivot. Needless to say, Half of a Yellow Sun is an astounding piece of work and it’s not just the story itself, it’s the writer’s voice. It’s the way she presents her writing in that way that is uniquely her. Her explorations of the Biafra war bring to mind the remembrance of much unchartered territory, many pieces left hanging in the air in my own country, dangling and jabbing. I am talking about the brief ‘civil’ war that occurred in the 1980s in Zimbabwe, famously known as Gukurahundi, a time that is not officially recognised in my country and which one cannot talk about.

At university (this is 2007 at NUST), during my free moments, I write. Now everybody is always coming around and asking me what am I doing? And when I say I am writing, the question is always what am I writing? And when I say a story, the question is why? Why? Well, because I love writing and I want to get something published. Now that answer, nobody seems to understand. There is usually this distant look in my interrogator’s eye, as though he or she does not really understand, does not really see the point. It’s something I always struggled with, that always bothered me, until I gave up and decided, it is better to show them. It is better to write and then show them, because to tell them is like to speak Chinese. So at university I am studying Architecture (fondly termed Archi-torture by my class) and during my spare time I’m finding out as much as I can about how Miss Adichie got to where she is, and in the process I am discovering other writers too, like Uzodimna Iweala, author of ‘Beasts of No Nation’. I had no idea that young Africans are writing so beautifully. To be honest, I was quite ignorant of the ‘African Writer’. I did Cambridge in High School and so cannot even boast of having read an African novel as a set book. The last ‘African’ novel I had ever read, was ‘Son of the Soil’ (can’t remember the author’s name) when I was eight, when my teacher saw me with it and told me I was going to go mad, because the book was just ‘not for my age’. And the only reason I read this book was because it was lying around at home, because I was itching to read something and it was conveniently there. Growing up, I voraciously devoured Enid Blyton and any other mystery books I could get my hands on. The Famous Five. The Secret Seven. Nancy Drew. The Hardy Boys. John Grisham. Robert Ludlum. It had never actually occurred to me, that there was anything like an ‘African’ novel. I actually saw myself as the next John Grisham; the fact that I was not in America and had never been to America did not deter the belief that I could write books about Americans in America and be the next John Grisham :-). Such was my state. So this new discovery of the existence of young Africans who write, was very exciting for me.

I started brooding. During my classes, when my lecturers were reeling off the names of great and inspiring architects, I was busy thinking of great and inspiring writers. Questions began haunting me. Like, what am I doing here? Sure, architecture is a great subject, very prestigious, very challenging. And in third world country, being a girl and pursuing such a degree was considered a very great thing. Five years. Five years in this degree.

We are hanging with the second and third years in the canteen and they are teasing us and saying, ‘This degree is hell. You work like hell and while others are partying, you are busy working. But-‘ says a third year, a twinkle in his eye. ‘ The pay off is great. Architects work hard, and they also spend hard.’ He grins.

Don’t get me wrong, I find architecture to be a very interesting subject. It’s just, I want to write. I’m tryna picture myself as an architect and the vision needs a lot of coaxing and even then it’s blurry. I picture my name on the cover of a novel and the vision is as clear as day. Five years. Hmmm. Some of us know why we are here, doing Archi-torture. We have always been clear from the get go about it and we enjoy it and our focus is unwavering. Others, well, some-of-us-the-others, are not quite sure. In third world country, it is easier to pack your dreams in a trunk and sit face to face with reality. And the reality is, Architects even in Africa are highly paid. The reality is, Writers in Africa… who? Who is highly paid? It’s a cut throat industry, I’m told. I can always do my writing as a thing-by-the-side, I’m told. Writing won’t take me anywhere, I’m told. I can always be an architect and well…writing on the side. Problem is, I’m sleeping four hours a day because of the work load and I feel my writing is not getting the attention it deserves. I’m moody as a result. I’m beginning to resent Archi-torture.

Something snaps inside of me. I resent the fact that nobody takes my writing seriously, that everybody wants me to treat it like some little hobby, a poor little addiction to be nursed by the side. So, heart in my throat, I decide to leave Archi-torture, because, wonderful-prestigious-well-paying-degree that it is, it’s just not me and I feel I will not experience the height of my happiness if I do it. There are mixed reactions. Basically many people are disappointed, because they believe I am throwing away one of the greatest degrees on earth. Some are in awe, that I am actually doing this, me, girl in third world country, passing up the chance at such a prestigious and exclusive degree. The awe is mixed with some criticism. The general prediction is that disaster is on the horizon.

So here is how the disaster is working out. I am now at the University of Witwatersrand. Pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce degree. Do not ask me why I am doing Bachelor of Commerce. I just am. And I do enjoy it. Much more than Archi-torture. I think I can marry my Bachelor of Commerce degree to my writing. Because there are many wonderful artists in my country who do not seem to be able to make a decent buck from their work and I think our ‘arts industry’ needs a bit of refining. Because I think the artist in Africa does need, if he is going to take his work seriously and make a living from it, to think just beyond the beauty of his craft to how he is going to manage it.

But now. Learning in South Africa has opened me up to so much, writing wise. Access to the internet is much easier, for example. In Zimbabwe, I personally, in my situation, would not have been able to maintain a blog. The internet access and cost would just not have really allowed me to do so. Here, in South Africa, I have managed to purchase what I consider to be the writer’s most prized utility-his laptop. Back home, I used to write by hand, then go to a public internet café and spend hours typing it out. I did not like to have my work typed by somebody else because there were always errors after the typing was done and I discovered I always revise and rewrite and change this and change that as I am typing. ( I don’t like writing by hand at all, as I’m a messy writer, I constantly change sentences and paragraphs as I go along, cancel this and add that, and so for me writing by hand is a tedious process). In SA, as I am writing, people will not come up to me and ask me what I am doing, then look at me as if I’m crazy when I say I’m writing. In SA, there are nice big book shops that smell of that delicious scent of new books and fresh pages. All of this is contributing to my writing. The atmosphere is conducive.

It has taken me a while to grow into it and get comfortable with it, but, there is no ‘work’ I enjoy more than writing. It has become such an addiction. To write, to check out what is happening with other writers, to find out who is doing what, to discover others’ beautiful work. All a pleasure. Such a pleasure. There is great pleasure in reading others’ work, beautiful work that gives you just another glimpse of the world. I love it. I feel at home in it. I get excited about it. And I know I am young, so young, and so I have a long way to go. I am just starting the journey. But I have had my ‘moment’, that pivot around which I turned. And yet I cannot say it is the only moment, for I have had so many other ‘moments’ after that. For instance, I was reading the work of Noviolet Mkha Bulawayo the other day, and I got so excited, because I did not know that Zimbabwe has such beautiful, starkly unique writing that stands out in the way her writing does. So that was another moment. I was reading E.C Osondu’s ‘Waiting’, and I had another moment. Read Parselelo Kantai’s ‘You Wreck Her’-another moment. Christopher Mlalazi’s ‘A Cicada in the Summer’. ‘Behind the Door’ by Kola Tubosun. ‘Emotional Chameleon’ by Jude Dibia. So many moments. Little moments of beauty inspiring, encouraging, urging on. Writing that is so strong, so captivating. Little moments for a little writer.

As always, I have written too much, lost myself in the ‘moment’. It was just a thought at the back of my mind this, Writing about Writing.

'Many Rivers'- Christopher Mlalazi's debut novel flooding the banks

2010-09-28T11:23:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2009

I’ve just finished reading ‘Many Rivers’ by Christopher Mlalazi. I was in Zim a few days back and am happy to say I purchased the first copy to be sold in Zimbabwe and Chris delighted me even further by signing my copy. ( I love signed copies- don’t we all? There is something personal about them) I must say I think Chris is a writer carving out his own niche, his writing style is not quite like the ‘common’ Southern- African writing styles I have seen. This is definitely a good thing, as there has been a lot of talk about breaking out of the stifling confines of the stereotypical notion of the ‘African’ story. Many Rivers is a pacey, racy thriller; a Southern-African mafia- type page-turner. This pumped up work is like the bold but quick strokes of a painter on his canvas, rummaging through the many layers of the Zimbabwean stature with a crafty and entertaining eye, and a wise and unusual economy of perusal. I think this suits the mood and pace of the novel well. Chris knows just what to do with his words too, no unnecessary fancy footing and extravagant lacing of words, which is common with many of us ‘writers’ who sometimes attack the English language with that excess zeal of one trying to prove an unnecessary point. It is so easy to get bogged down with how flowery to get the wording and in the end take your reader on a kaleidoscopic ride of the English language while leaving him in a blank space as far as the picture you are trying to get across is concerned. But not Chris. He manipulates this colonial language we have cleverly reshaped and endowed with that tasty African flavour very well. He gives you enough to conjure up the picture and keep turning that page just one more time, one more time, until you reach the final dramatic end and the disappointment grins at you as you realise that there are no more pages to turn. There has been the view that African writing is most often heavy, sombre, often too serious and, besides your regular pacesetters, not enough variety. Well, here is Christopher Mlalazi with some exciting new writing for you. A great read. One of the aims of the written word is to entertain. In Many Rivers, Christopher Mlalazi is certainly at the height of this craft.

Landscapes by Bongani Ncube-Zikhali

2010-09-28T11:21:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Light struggles to make its way through the canopy of trees which rise up, tall as towers, to the half glimpsed sky. Their trunks stand ramrod straight, as if they were all cast from the same mould. But they stand in no discernable pattern as if He who cast them did not bother to line them up.

The forest is thick with trees, as far as the eye can see in all directions, trees growing, silently living, quietly awake, waiting for something to happen; or not waiting at all. Simply existing in the microcosm of their individual universes. Their leaves are black where they are cast in shadow and shine green where they capture the golden light of the sun. Countless numbers of black & golden green, shifting in the light wind, changing continuously as some suddenly manage to glint in sunlight and others are strangled by darkness to lose their shimmering glory; shadows once more.

The breeze carries the smell of damp earth and the carpet of dead and dying leaves that carpets the ground. It wafts along gently, playfully even, but then at moments it gains in intensity as if suddenly reminded of some place it has to be. Then it picks up, gathering in strength until the leaves above and below wail in protest, whooshing and rustling against each other. The dead leaves on the ground come alive once more, picked up in the arms of the dancing air, twirling in complicated patterns around the trunks of the trees until they are laid gently onto their grave, the ground, by the dying breeze.

As calm descends once more, the sounds of life are heard. Birds chatter in the high branches, spreading their news to each other and also the thousand and one tappings, slitherings & rustling of bugs, worms, ants and snakes. Some sounds are better seen than heard; the silent fluttering of the wings of a butterfly caress the air around them so gently it, the air, doesn’t bother to report the insect’s presence to any waiting ears.
Beauty is simple here; the butterfly’s wings are coloured petals that seem to be covered in gold dust. As it floats ever so gracefully through the air, one would almost expect a trail of golden shavings to be scattered in its trail. The flower it lands on, almost hidden in the complex maze that is the roots of a tree, is as beautiful as its visitor. White petals swirled around an orange centre; it quivers gently as the insect sets itself onto its meal.

Small as these actors are in the drama that is the forest, there are even smaller ones on the stage of their own microcosms. Ants march in line up and down the trunk of a tree, as unrelenting an army as any that ever advanced over the African plains. Their legs, so thin they could punch holes in water, trample over the bark but leave no imprint, cause no sound. Worms burrow through the earth, blindly searching for what it is, they do not know, only that their lives depend on it. They are unfelt, unseen, unheard but just as alive as any of the other creatures that populate this place.

Creatures that, unaware of it, depend on each other for their continued existence. Creatures that might look at each other and see a nuisance, or a predator, or food; but in reality they behold their guardian, their brother in this life, their complement in the eternal dance that is existence as it makes its way through the tortuous road of time. These are creatures that will live and die together, never alone, always bound by the ties of being and never yet know it. Perhaps that is for the best, they did not eat of the fruit of knowledge so why torture them with its pains. Let us leave them as they are; alive and living, as life commanded them to do, as they only know how to do. Let us leave the cool embrace of the forest shade, let us retreat silently from that dark and mysterious enclave and regard it once from a distance, a wondrous castle of shadows, before we turn our gaze elsewhere.

***
The sun is truly a god here, or as the Ancients would put it; The God. Let us not argue; the heat is more real than any arguments we might care to bring up. As real as the celestial orb that hangs, burning, in the heavens. Its glory is more than any eye can bear and its heat, no its fury, is almost more than any living being can bear.

What else but fury can scorch the earth so relentlessly day in and day out? Without mercy or any gentleness, attacking the terrain with rays of heat as real as sharp spears that pierce the life out of any unfortunate unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of them. As is the land here, doomed to be below the sun and not above it; taken in a forceful embrace that has sucked the life out of the ground. Or as much of the life as is naïve to try and make a life in this region of hell on earth. For it is not only the sun that is guilty here, it’s the heavens as well, the clouds that dare not make their way to this remote outpost. Or when they do, they ride through the sky like stately ships and do not allow the slightest drop of moisture to escape from their snow white interiors. They cast a relieving shadow across the land, whisper the promise of rain in the ears of its thirst and then disappear, flying across the sky, chuckling at the poor unfortunates caught in their golden prison.

And golden it is, beautiful even. The sands undulate as far as the eye can see in shifting dunes that look like a ruffled golden carpet. Where plants grow, by some miraculous deal struck with nature, (or is it simply perseverance) they stand stiff and straight like sentinels, their cacti barbs ready to defend their honour, ready to repel any onslaught.
And it is quiet. An eerie silence broken only by the sound of the hot desert breeze. A silence that cannot be pierced, lays heavily on the land like a thick blanket as real as the absence of life in this god forsaken land. It is the type of silence that invites reflection just as the sand reflects the heat of the sun back to the heavens. Reflection on the life that will soon disappear from you if you stay here too long, how it is the sum of so much more than your just being alive but the fact that the world wants you alive and has made life flow through the earth in as much as the sand around you is dead. Reflection on the life you are fortunate enough to have, a life that you too often take for granted in the mistaken notion that one somehow deserves life. The absence of life in this place invites you to reconsider that notion. It is after all a place of quiet consideration, of quiet and solitary contemplation. The mystics were not lost when they retreated into the desert to pray;
far from it, they had found their home.

But just as much as the silence invites reflection it awakens voices. The mind undistracted with the constant rush of life about it has time to consider even those deepest fears hidden in the darkest corners of its reach. Voices that speak of death, of secrets long hidden and demons unexorcised in the dark corners of the soul. For in as much as many of us claim to know ourselves we pay little attention to that region that lies within preferring instead to consider the people who surround us. And it is only the strong who venture into those dark depths, only the wise who answer those unanswered questions.

Or perhaps I speculate too much? There is no strength in the snake that winds from side to side across the scorching desert sand, no bravery in the cactus that stands proudly green in this land that promises no water or nourishment for its survival. Perhaps there is no fury in the sun demanding to be worshipped in the heavens as it stays on the mind like some continuous prayer. Whatever. The landscape is what it is and asks no one to validate its existence. Again, the heat is more real than any arguments we care to think of.

Go Our Dove, Those Ahead Shall Pluck You by Bongani Ncube-Zikhali

2010-09-28T11:20:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

The stars shine darkly, the heavens weep,
They who were once kings have fallen.
The blood of ages has begun to seep,
Through the fabric of time unforgotten.

Forgive, perhaps but forgotten never,
Regret always, but undo? Forget!
For now, always and forever,
That which you began shall beget.

The little things give you away,
Those windows of your soul;
Have lost their ability to sway,
Your true lies are now whole.

Perhaps you believe in fate,
Or is it He you call Father of All?
The Day of Judgement cannot wait,
You who once flew shall fall.

The gates of Hell are waiting,
Your hearts’ direction has found;
The way to your doom awaiting,
They swing open without a sound.

The sun has ceased to shine,
The river no more shall run;
Vengeance may never be ours,
But be sure it will come.

INTWASA 2009

2010-09-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Winning the Intwasa 2009 Short Story Competition has served as a great motivation to keep the writing going, to keep penning those musings down, keep playing with those words. I honestly do not have more to say (one of those few times when a writer really is ‘out of words’). Writing competitions, I guess, serve as a stimulus for writing, when you are consciously aware that your work will be read by others out there (in this case judges), you become really aware, as it were, of your work. One of the hardest things is, of-course, coming to an accurate analysis of your own work (very difficult thing), as a writer, sometimes you are simply too close to your work and sometimes you think the going is good when maybe it ain’t so great. Oh, and you are plagued by doubts, I mean how can you be sure that you are on the right lane, there is such a thin line between ‘wow’ masterpieces and absolute crap, sometimes one sees a masterpiece, another sees crap in the same work, then when you try and stick to the safe lane by repeating what has already been done, you are called mediocre. One must simply not lose sight of one’s writing objectives (very hard to demystify, those, ‘writing objectives’, what does that mean exactly?)

I’d just like to say thanks, I mean so far after winning this competition I got this really great and thought provoking advice from my ‘sista’, who is a gem of a writer, with a gem of a character, and so her words always sparkle like gems, even when she is giving a sista some hard knock lessons on certain aspects of the writing arena, the words fall hard and hit home the way gems are meant to, knock you over with a positive and encouraging light.
Do you get it?
No I don’t get it.
(Whack!-a slap) Now do you get it?
Oh yes!

The African way of rearing does work.

And my ‘sista’, you must not beat my compliments to a pulp- for some reason or other many of us love to do that- is there some child rearing method that teaches us not to bow before compliments, but to crouch beneath them? (rather to squash them)
Your dress looks soooo lovely!
Aw camun! You mean this ugly thing?
Well (shrug)…if you insist. (haha)

It’s just that us writers are so in tune with the more substantive things of life (haha), otherwise, those of us who give such excellent advice (such as my ‘sista’), should be billing for it, the way lawyers and doctors do (oh especially the lawyers, why are lawyers always under attack? So many lawyer jokes out there), open a lil office and do one of those 750 an hour (I did not mention the currency), then as your reputation goes up and the people are queuing by your doorstep, you stop being nice and start being grumpy and rude to your clients and you raise your fee to 1000 and you no longer specify for how long it is, see people for ten minutes and get them believing they got their money’s worth just because you have a reputable name…Ever noticed how the higher up the ladder these doctors and lawyers and doctors and lawyers go, the cockier they get? Ok, this is not meant to be a generalization ( even though it is), yes, even though it is, it’s not meant to be. So. Writers writers writers. Why do we write? Is it just the pen on the paper, what is there beyond that? Am wondering.

Thanks Intwasa, you are a great motivation to this young writer and you inspire her to go wherever one goes from here (where does one go from here? Where is the where from here? Perhaps there’s a no where. Perhaps there’s just a here) One just keeps on writing and then one should let the writing do the rest (writing has a life of its own it just takes over you and begins to own you, in the end you no longer know who’s boss- the great coup). No really, I think I’ve said my two cents, it’s just I had to keep saying more because my words were appreciating with the Zim inflation. Now we’ve changed currency. (No look really, no, if my jokes are dry you really don’t have to laugh, you can just, you can just…. you can just something, find something to laugh at, I’m really trying here, at least my jokes are clean, ever listened to any of those live comedians speak, they don’t crack jokes, they make really dirty jokes and then people laugh at their audacity. One thing I love about Zim is we still have our sense ofdecency you know (although again decency is also a subjective thing), but we still have that nice, sour sweetness about us, beats having a sweet sourness, I mean would you rather have it sour-sweet or sweet-sour? I’m telling you, if you were to walk in Joburg with a mini on, they would hoot at you and whistle and ask for your number…if you try the same thing egodini (back home in Bulawayo), they will rip it off you and ridicule you-I mean if you’re gonna wanna have everything out, have everything out, I mean who the hell are you doing it for anyway? ‘It’s my body it’s my body’, not if you’re gonna display it like slabs of meat to be slapped and poked at the open market)

Again. Why do we write? What are the politics involved? Is it just pen on paper? Am just wondering.

An Incredible New Voice - Erica Emdon's unputdownable debut novel 'Jelly Dog Days'

2010-09-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2009

Have just finished reading Erica Emdon’s ‘Jelly Dog Days’. Wow. This excellent piece of fiction is simply unputdownable. This is definitely one of the best novels I have read this year- Erica Emdon really comes out with a high flier- the novel is vicious, gripping, domineering. Unputdownable.

‘Jelly Dog Days’ is told in first person. The protagonist, ‘Theresa Stephanie Victoria Mary Ryman’, fondly ‘Terry’, gets under your skin right from page one. We go with her through her violent and dysfunctional childhood, with an alcoholic mother and a wickedly dangerous stepfather, and the many responsibilities she has to bear as the first of five siblings. The story is set in Johannesburg in the 1970s, with powerful and relevant links to the events of that time, such as the Soweto students uprising. One of its many strengths is its expert build up of a brutal reality- the pieces are not too neat, as tales usually are, but jagged and chipped, as life really is, and I think this is one of the many brilliant aspects of the novel, one of the reasons why the book is so unputdownable, why there is a surprise in every corner. The way the tale unravels is unpredictable, and this holds one suspended, hooked to the dangling morsel moving along the pages.

Excellent character build up, you get to really appreciate the characters as being so ‘real’ because of the way they are so ‘pregnant’. What I loved most about the characters is how they don’t act as they should- this makes the tale all the more real. Often we have this view of how peopleshould be, what they should do, how they should act. This tale is all the more harrowing because it teaches us that even the people who shouldlove us right and should get their lives right for our sake- for example Terry’s mother- sometimes simply can’t and simply don’t. There are these glimmers of hope in the story, where Terry’s mother seems to be cleaning up her act, and they make the tale all the more heart wrenching. There are things that happen to Terry which shouldn’t, and when they do they should get justice, but don’t. We never stop learning about the characters, just the way we never stop learning about people in real life; as each situation comes up we get a deeper understanding of Terry’s grandma, her stepfather Piet, their friends. People aren’t always as they seem. The complexities and many trip ups in this story lend it a very real quality that you find you can ‘taste’.

The theme of this tale borders around family, and I think it makes one of the most excellent representations of the complexities of the family set up, be it an Afrikaans family or any family at that. The very fact that family fails to intervene in the case of Terry, who is a mere child, the manner in which many ills are ‘covered up’, is so typical of the family set up. We have Ulrike, Terry’s aunt, who although is well meaning and cares for Terry, is not really effective in helping Terry. Many times in the book, Terry has hopes of perhaps going to live with Ulrike, and, ironically, this invitation from Ulrike comes rather late in the book, when really, it is too late. The irony of the letter is in itself disappointing and frustrating, Ulrike says she has ‘heard a bit about what has happened’ to Terry (and what has happened is definitely more than ‘a bit’), and invites Terry to come and live with her ‘for a while’. Ulrike represents those people in our lives who, although well- meaning, never really stand up to do anything to ‘help’. Another character you would just love to smack is Terry’s grandma. Her failure to act as an adult in the face of overwhelming evidence of Terry’s dark situation is maddening. By far the most interesting, disturbing, and in my opinion rather ‘psychotic’ character is Terry’s mother. This woman is just incredible. Just when you believe she can’t shock you, she does. Just when you think she will get it right, she doesn’t. She’s incredible.

This touching piece of work resonates on many levels. I think one of its many beauties is its universal tones, its ability to conquer the racial and cultural boundaries. This is one of those books for everyone, that everyone can read and relate to at some level, because it really has a lot of threads, in my opinion, about 'human-ness', and 'human-ness' is something about every one of us. It also goes against the stereotypes one may have of the white race in South Africa, there are many ‘assumptions’ I had to revise, great stuff. You move from standing on the outside to getting on the inside of things. One of the best ways to learn, really, about a culture or a race, is through fiction. Absolutely. This is a tale of a dysfunctional childhood in a white family in apartheid South Africa, and yet it is more than that. The author’s language and wonderful description of childhood and memory, the way the voice is so efficient in its change from that of a child to that of a teenager, thus changing gears in the mood and perspective, builds up a little web that seems to link up to so many aspects of this journey we call life. I am a black Zimbabwean (not yet born in the years in which this book is set), reading this story by a white South African writer, and yet her descriptions coax memories of Zim as it was when I was growing up. I find myself reading a description of the fruit trees in Terry’s family’s garden and suddenly I am remembering the fruit trees at my grandfather’s house. I am reading about Terry and her dolls and her childhood friends and teenage spats and suddenly I am remembering something of my own childhood- a sweet nostalgia is creeping up on me.

One thing I think the story may have been able to do without (and this is merely my humble opinion) is the epilogue. I loved the lack of ‘finality’ in the page before the epilogue (just a personal taste of mine- it does not speak of the merits of the epilogue, as we all know that tastes differ). It was a dangling morsel with a shadow of finality but no appearance of the finality itself.

Works such as ‘Jelly Dog Days’ leaves one asking, Where has such wonderful fiction been all along, where has this writer been all along?,glad that this gifted writer has found her voice, eager for her next work. If this, her debut novel, is so rich and so ‘wow’, then there is expectation of even greater things to come. A well researched, ‘real’, beautifully written, excellently paced piece of fiction. I recommend every lover of fiction to get a copy of this novel (published by Penguin SA, 2009)- it really is one of the best works I’ve read, well written, excellent pacing, I cannot say this enough! (always get excited when discover great author, needless to say will now hound Erica Emdon’s works!:-)

Get a Refreshing with Brian Chikwava's 'Harare North'

2010-09-28T11:09:00.001-07:00

sATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2009

I have jus finish reading Brian Chikwava’s ‘Harare North’. This book so funny it make me go ‘kak kak kak’ all the way. The protagonist is such a humour, he is run away Green Bomber come to London to make US$5000 to pay police back home to leave him alone and to organise umbuyisofor he dead mother. (Green bomber is famous name for youth doing ‘National Service’ under ZANU Pf government in Zimbabwe). He come stay in his cousin Paul and he wife’s Sekai’s house, but it clear to him from moment he arrive and Sekai ask him pay his ticket home that they don’t want him here. As clear to him as the propaganda which he see the news mud-piling on Zimbabwe and she hero Cde Mugabe. But he is determined, he constantly remind us that he is ‘not civilian person’ therefore he is not bothered by ‘civilian style’.

But when living in Paul and Sekai’s house get bad, our unnamed protagonist go stay with childhood friend Shingi. He get job shovelling mud and in the author’s own lyrical and comical style, tell us that ‘You spend them weeks shifting mud with shovels and sweat beads come out of every pore in the body because you is putting heaps of effort while your buttocks point to high heaven and migrant flesh start to stink around you as shirts and underpants get damp. Here you quickly learn that the weight of your buttocks increase by the hour and come down only by night when you is sandwiched between blanket and mattress.’ Being without papers in the then Tony Blair’s ‘Harare North’, job is not guaranteed and one is easy target for manipulation. They is lose jobs, ‘graft’, and an up and down search commence, ‘graft’ one day, no ‘graft’ the next. Many a time they is get good offer for doing job as BBC, ‘British Buttock Cleaner’, but, as our wise protagonist ask us- ‘you want to do something- what is better, to try doing it your own way and risk finding small success, or to do it in undignified pooful way and find big success?’-because, as he tell us, he is ‘principled man’. This hilarious novel is full of such pieces of them wise thoughtful lines dished out crumb by crumb in artful and lyrical way.

Via our protagonist, without having to spend doleful eyes fluttering in long queue of mish-mash English sentence put together to make sure you the reader know you is dunderhead, we is get to meet and laugh with childishly delighting Tsitsi, who make some living renting out she baby to women who is in need of bebe for Social Service help. Tsitsi is sweetish gal who sometimes remind one of them school gals dishing out girlish giggles to them school boys they is not agreeing to be meeting but is meeting every afternoon by street corner. We is also having Comrade Mhiripiri, commander of the Green Bombers back home and also the source of our protagonist’s most revering accomplished trusting adoration and the cause of his most wrathful confused manipulating need to dish out ‘forgiveness’. And of course Shingi, who is a tool of affection and manipulation for our protagonist.

Our protagonist may not be excellent with his English but he is excellent with his thought. He carry himself the way African man is proud of carrying himself, with the proud of a black warrior who even when he has nothing he has everything because what he is cannot be put in competition with what he has not. As he make it clear to whoever want to turn he ugly little nose at him, ‘You see me stepping down them pavements from graft with hands in my pockets and you think you know me?’ He is wise in what he knows even if what he knows may be stupid. He hold on to it with iron fist and in the end it seem like the cause of his comical dementia.

Me I love the sound of newness in this refreshing piece of work. It is comedy and it is light and tragic comedy but it is comedy all the same. It is good read; I love the way the author break the English language in such lyrical and beautiful manner. Recently people have been engaged in complaint about African writing which wants to be too serious all the time like a commando who does not put down his gun even at home and want to treat he childrens like they is his troops and he wife like she is war price to be conquered. So reading this piece of first person narration has been timely because it make me throw my head back and go ‘ kak kak kak’; there in the heart of lyrical laughter lies the nuggets of thought and life lesson. They is say (I do not know who is ‘they’ but they is always saying something) that if you is want people to remember something for a time, make them cry. If you is want them to remember something for eternal eternity, you is make them laugh. Because we is love to sooth our souls with sweetened memories which is why sometimes we find ourselves laughing at something which is full of pain. Brian Chikwava has made us laugh and laugh and laugh. And in this our laughter he has tickled us with them nuggets which overly serious African writing love to slap us with.

This was a very funny novel and my 'bad' English above is just a poor imitation of the style used in 'Harare North'- such was its inspiration that I had to give this 'gudo-bado language style' a try. Great stuff by Brian Chikwava- a big milestone for Zimbabwean Literature. Now this is a novel you can read lounging at home for pure entertainment or in your straight backed chair as a set-book; in fact I think it would be good as a set book- the students would definitely not be snoring through this one!

At The Zim-South African Border

2010-09-28T11:04:00.001-07:00

The Gems in Petina Gappah's 'An ELegy For Easterly'

2010-09-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2009

Much humbling came upon reading this compilation, which I picked up with my own preconceptions, owing to the fact that the writer has lived overseas for so long and happens to be a very learned Lawyer ( I expected to read this compilation clutching a dictionary- if there is one thing African Intellectuals are famous for, it's throwing about the weight of their 'intellect'- slapping the ordinary person with their extraordinary Thesaurus-size English words and leaving him applauding insults which he does not understand are meant for him- (a little joke:-).

Petina Gappah is in touch with Zimbabwe and the ordinary Zimbabwean, and impressively so. Her straightforward story telling style which not only highlights the truly disastrous effects of the power struggle ravaging our country, but also pierces the hearts of her characters, is decorated with colourful dialogue bubbling with frothy home-brew language and Shona wording, all to come up with a great and very Zimbabwean effect.

The thirteen stories in this compilation, all using something or other about the Zimbabwean situation as a back drop, comprise of very tangible and interesting characters- take the 'mad' Emily in the mental wing at Parirenyatwa Hospital in 'The Annexe Shuffle', for example- I think her madness is a very interesting angle, given the many spirit breaking ordeals the people in my country have had to face, and their stamina while doing so. What I enjoyed in this compilation is what I would call the 'Zimbabwean In-house Effect', stark passages and terminologies which as I read hit home as being very Zimbabwean.

Take my favourite story for example, 'The Mupandawana Dancing Champion'. This energetic and humorous tale tells the story of Mdhara Vitalis Mukaro, who is forced into early retirement due to foreign currency shortages and is given three pairs of boots as 'pension' for his thirty years' service to the company. The story takes place in 'Mupandawana, full name 'Gutu-Mupandawana Growth Point'. It is during the 'Mupandawana Dancing Competition that Mdhara Vitalis gets the opportunity to show off his agility on the dance floor. Now, we all know that a Growth Point is the 'city' of the villages, the 'happening place', where the cattle boys and young girls slink off to and get down to some energetic music with a calabash in hand. Music is a vital aspect of a culture, it is through song and dance that many a tale is told. In 'The Mupandawana Dancing Champion' song, dance and the short story come together to form a magnetic coalition of mesmerizing story telling. Here, Petina Gappah's pen flirts with the page. Here, the pen does marvellous things, it executes some complicated dance moves on paper to come up with a scene that leaps out of the page. The author is reeling off the names of some great and popular Zimbabwean singers, and already you can hear the tinkles of those lively guitar strings for which Shona music is so popular. As the author goes on to tell of the energetic dancing that went on, you can just picture those 'Growth Pointers' doing some heavy getting down. As you read, you are tempted to click your fingers and whistle and shout ' Tshova George!' (Tshova George is a term used to rally the dance on- a sign of enjoyment). Another memorable line is 'The security guard's Borrowdale became a Mbaresdale'. Borrowdale is a very posh suburb in Harare, Capital City of Zimbabwe. There is also the 'Borrowdale Dance' which was invented by Zimbabwean Singer Alick Macheso. Mbare is a township in Harare. So upon the entrance of Mdhara Vitalis, the security guard's dance was relegated from posh Borrowdale to township 'Mbaresdale'- Zimbabweans would understand this upon first reading (hence the stark Zim Flavour in this tale). 'The Mupandawana Dancing Champion' comes to a humorous and original end as Mdhara Vitalis dances himself to a memorable death.

'He got down to the ground, rolled and shook. We crowded around him, relishing this new dance that we had not seen before. He twitched to the right and to the left. The music was loud as we egged him on. He convulsed in response to our cheering. His face shone, and he looked at us as if to say, 'Clap Harder'. And we did.
It was only when the song ended and we gave him a rousing ovation and still he did not get up that we realised that he would never get up, and that he had not been dancing, but dying.'

Another hilarious and great twist is that the title 'Mupandawana Dancing Competition' has the letters of the name of the opposition party in Zimbabwe, Movement for Democratic Change- MDC. This point, another ingenious construction by the author, is illustrated in a passage where the Governor summons the Member of Parliament for the District to point out this anomaly. The Governor asks, 'What business does a ruling MP have in promoting the opposition, the puppets, those led by tea boys, the detractors who do not understand that the land is the economy and the economy is the land and that the country will never be a colony again, those who seek to reverse the consolidation of the gains of our liberation struggle'. This passage is reminiscent of the many tired speeches laced with obsessive paranoia that one hears from the Ruling Party in Zimbabwe, usually broadcast on the sole National Television Station, Ztv aka Zanu tv.

'The Mupandawana Dancing Champion' is an absolute original. There are many other memorable lines in these pages that coax many memories; as I read one passage or another, I am able to link some characters to someone I know, something I've heard, seen. The different types of maids reeled off in 'The Maid from Lalapanzi' brought to mind my own childhood maids, in particular one who used to come and pick me up from primary school wearing my mother's clothes (it was my first year in primary school at the time and I never used to notice the clothes- until the time my mother came home early and caught her!) As for the Diaspora, almost every Zimbabwean has a relative cultivating those greener Diaspora pastures. A memorable character is Rambanai in 'My Cousin-Sister Rambanai', who has come home for her father's funeral and, due to fraudulent papers and money constraints, is not able to immediately return to America. She is reminiscent of some of those relatives who come home for a visit with too-good-to-be-true-tales, who show off at every turn and spend money like it is their last day on earth (that was possible during the inflated exchange rates on the black market when the Zim dollar was still in use in the country- now we use the rand and the US dollar mostly so prices are stabilzing), taking cabs everywhere and eating in those restaurants that the Zimbabweans at home could no longer afford. The one thing most 'Diasporans' always find difficult is leaving home, and so they always make sure to gulp down as much of it as they can. The writer's accuracy in capturing the lives and traits of Zimbabweans is indeed commendable- it makes these tales all the more precious.

I read this book when I was at home, in Zimbabwe (where I currently am) and have since passed it on to a couple of people to read. The first comments were 'What an unusual cover', 'What an unusual title', 'Oh, there is a Zimbabwean writer called Petina Gappah?' The ordinary man on the street (and most other people actually, actually most people who are not writers or somehow connected to the writing industry) is not aware of the current stories being told re Zimbabwe. He will readily smile when you mention Dambudzo Marechera, Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga, but he will falter when you mention any of the fresh Zim writers. You cannot really blame him, in a country brought to its knees and where not much is done to publicize literature to its people, where the book shops are half empty and where most of its population would consider purchasing a novel a luxury, one can hardly be surprised. The Bulawayo Public Library boasts of a wide collection of Western Fiction and only a cabinet of African Literature, very little, if any of it current. Which is a shame, as stories such as those in 'An Elegy for Easterly' need to filter to the ordinary man on the street, who although does not purchase books, does visit the local library. My little sample of readers like the tales told in this compilation; they feel that the stories speak about them and they like that, they enjoy the humour within the tragedies. One comment that stuck was 'These are Untold Stories'. This, I believe, is what makes this book precious.

Faber and Faber is a big publisher with a large audience, therefore it is to be much appreciated that, in catering for their world wide audience, they have managed to retain the stark Zimbabweaness in Petina Gappah's tales. This means that those who do read, both at home and elsewhere, will get an accurate and humorous view of the things that do happen in our country; perhaps this was not the author's intention but in writing fiction she has given a nice, touching and much valued account of the things Zimbabweans have to deal with, their ingenious methods of dealing with these impossible situations and the strength with which they have done so. The stories are more than just about struggles and glimpses of the elite, they are about lives and certain aspects of a culture and the squabbles that go on, these things that human beings get up to. I'd like to get my hands on the French Version of the book (my French is passable, I'm sure with a dictionary and a copy of the English Version I could labour through). I'm curious as to how they managed the 'Zimbabwean Flavour' in the other languages. Did they keep the Shona, for example? And how did they manage terms like 'Mbaresdale'?

This is indeed a precious compilation that has left me greatly looking forward to the author's upcoming debut novel 'The Book of Memory'.

'African Writer'...???!!!!

2010-09-28T10:58:00.001-07:00

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

Ah, we must, now and again, give thanks to the gods for their graciousness in sharing the knowledge of the internet! (sigh) What would we do without the internet! Where else would we be able to fall over ourselves in tickles of laughter over….aah, hehehe, I’m sorry, the child in me is on the rampage today. The elders frown down at me, tell me with their eyes to shut up and be still. Ah, but this child-in-me is at that stage where children cannot be reigned in, where they say what they mean and do as they please. Let me attempt to reign her in (I do not promise that she will comply, though)

I am simply amused by the ‘so much hype’ over Petina Gappah’s ‘I don’t see myself as an African Writer’ statement. No, I’m sorry, I didn’t know so much was being made out of it, it is only yesterday that I read Ikhide R. Ikheloa’s ‘In Search of the African Writer’ on Next, and the commentary that followed ( after reading some of those comments, the compulsion to expletivate. Then I remembered what my good mother once said. Respect the opinions of others. We must nurture tolerance and embrace our diversity- it makes the world such a colourful place, makes for beautiful living. The mind is constantly challenged by new perspectives. And with that, comes growth. Open. Your. Mind. And listen to your mother!) This reminds me of another discussion I saw on Zimbablog, re Ms Gappah and her book- ooh, it’s never the posts that tickle but the commentary that follows! People were falling over themselves – murdering themselves – butchering themselves- all in the name of Petina Gappah. Ah! I think we should graduate Ms Gappah to celebrity status – anyone who has the ‘power’ to invoke such ‘chaos’ and ‘self righteous indignation’ just by a few simple words, should be given a celebrity tag. It won’t be long before the paparazzi are on her door step, hounding her dogs, filtering through her trash (work with me here), and the ‘fans’ (this can be in the form of a love-hate relationship) are stepping out in a murderous frenzy. (oh, I forget, that is a Western form of adoration- sooo unAfrican). Ok, so let me change that- perhaps we will condemn her into exile. That’s what we do in Africa. She will have to flee, before we chase her down the streets with machetes (this is metaphoric of course, she does not presently reside in Africa). Ooh, as Africans we have learned and learned well, our leaders have set the most wonderful examples before us- there is no room for individualism in Africa- again- it is such a Western notion- in Africa, we believe the good of the community comes first- individualism is a concept that simply cannot exist. As such, you cannot belong to yourself, you are owned by the people. Shut up and shut up, it is not about you, there is no you here, what is, what is this youbusiness, this me business, this I business…nonsense! There is only we here, free to say what you like, free to say what you like? Of course you can say what you like….but only within the confines of the shackles of this freedom. Whether you like it or not, any ascent on any platform automatically means you are representing the rest of us oppressed, marginalised masses. Which is why, if you stray from what we, the masses, want and perceive to be the ‘right thing’, we will quickly reign you into line. Unless you are untameable, of course, then following which we will kill you (oh work with me please, I am in hyperbole- kick me- kick me mode). Like if you say ‘I don’t see myself as an African Writer’, the messenger will run to all the crevices of the land, and by the time it gets to the other end, it will sound something like ‘Dear reader, I order you not to see me as an African Writer, I renounce my African-ness, I am ashamed to be black, I have an inferiority complex, get away from me all you black subhumans from the dark continent! I am not one of you. Oh oh oh!’ ( again you must forgive me, I am not my usual self today, I think I forgot to take my pills lol…) Kinda reminds me of that telephone game we used to play as children, where someone whispers something in your ear and you have to pass it on until it gets to the end of the line..by the time it reaches the end, it is something totally different from the original message. But. This baffles me. Since when, have we been given the license to take a personal affront at the statements made by others about themselves? How selfish are we, can we possibly be, to be able to turn something about another distant person, into something about ourselves? I mean was this writer elected-by-the-people-for-the-people (pamberi), to be some sort of spoke person for the people, and push forward the agendas of the people? I mean is this what writing, from an ‘African context’, is all about? Is this responsibility to martyr oneself to the general consensus re Africa, a prerequisite for the ‘African Writer’? Why can’t one simply be ‘a writer who hails from the continent Africa’, and shed the baggage of the ‘African Writer’? It is so tragic on so many levels.

Ah. The elders have finally spanked the child-in-me. She has run out of steam. They look at me in disapproval and try to figure out which one of them I take after. It cannot be any of them, such indiscipline! It must be from my mother’s side. When I am bad, I am my mother’s child. When I am good, I am my father’s child. Hmmm.

On Books and Books

2010-09-28T10:57:00.001-07:00

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010

It’s ‘Back to school! Back to reality!’ time. Three and a half months holiday has proved to be really, really looong..until now that I have to go back to lectures, of course. Time has, once again, become expensive. My poor writing is lodging endless complaints to my persona. That’s what happens when you spoil kids. They forget their boundaries lol. But I must be careful with my writing, I make her too angry and she will retreat into herself, sulk and wage a war of writers’ block. But she must know who’s the boss here. To let her play the parent would be like giving a four year old a real gun. Why am I thinking of guns. I’m tryna think what dangerous weapon I could give a four year old in Zim. Am in my second year of Bcom- this is the year that one must choose one’s majors- took up Economics and Finance as majors. So far so good. It is, after all, only the beginning of the year. Economics is great, love the theory and that break-it-down-logic that comes with it. Finance, well, it’s crunching and crunching the numbers. Crunch crunch crunch.

Am presently going through Uwem Akpan’s ‘Say You’re One of Them’. It’s one of those books I got last year and then started reading and then didn’t quite get down to reading and then someone came and borrowed it and went and went and went with it and now I had to ask and ask and ask to get it back. It’s pretty irritating, how people borrow books and never bring them back. I think I now have less than half of my books left- the rest are somewhere with someone. It gets me thinking, I should ban people from taking them. But then, if I’ve read them, it wouldn’t serve them well to just sit on the shelf and look pretty now would it? If only people could be trusted. So far, am enjoying Uwem Akpan immensely. Again, I picked up this book with attitude- I saw the cover of the little black girl running down that brown stretch of dusty road and thought ‘Oh oh, another “Africa” story’. It’s worse after you read the comments on the first pages- I read ‘…concerned uncompromisingly with the issues facing many people living in Africa now: debt, religiosity, poverty, the venality of rulers….’ and thought with a cynical smile ‘Oh oh’. But this book is pretty amazing- the writing dazzles. I did not get the impression that the stories were of ‘debt, religiosity, poverty etc…’, not in that wholesome sense. It’s their humanity that touches home the most. That’s what I’m loving the most about these tales. They distil the matter down to the core of being. I’m very careful these days about that ‘Africa’ brush. It is a difficult brush, for either side. I think it is more important to become more interested in individuals, in a person and what makes them tick, instead of singing ‘Africa Africa’ all the time. I think it makes people view others from a distance, this paint brush. You no longer see the individual, but a group within the individual. I’m reminded of Mama Shujaa’s post ‘Lost in America’. It brings interesting dynamics into play. Back to ‘Say You’re One of Them’—I especially love the dialogue, the writer uses it in abundance and you find the characters really really taking shape from the dialogue. I especially loved the mix of French-Anglais-Pigdin Anglais in ‘Fattening for Gabon’. It is rich. Well, am still going through the book. Will write something about it when I’m done. I’ve discovered that writing about what one has read, what one enjoyed and what one did not etc, actually helps with one’s own writing. Sorta like a lesson taught by the self. You move from that passive reader plane to actively thinking about the work. Pretty cool stuff.

Another book that I’ve enjoyed immensely is ‘Black Docker’ by Sembene Ousmane. It was Sembene Ousmane’s first novel. It was first published in 1956 in French, as ‘Le Docker Noir’. It is a semi-autobiographical work and draws from his own experiences and what he saw around him- racism, prejudice— in Marseilles in the 1950s. It tells the story of Diaw Falla, a black docker in a little African community in France. Diaw writes a novel, and takes it to a white writer named Ginette, who promises to help him with its publication. She steals his book and publishes it as her own. Enraged, Diaw confronts her, there is a violent scuffle, and he kills her. The story takes us through Diaw’s trial. The Jury cannot bring themselves to believe he is the one who wrote the book, even after he has quoted fluently, a passage from it. The issue seems to be whether or not the murder was premeditated, and there are varying theories as to the motive for the murder. The tale is more than just about the book itself, the book symbolises all of Diaw’s hopes and dreams—a ticket out of the perpetual hell in the docks, where men are driven like machines, underfed and underpaid, until they die. This tale slices through the fat and goes straight to the heart. It deals with difficult and sensitive matters, and does so unflinchingly. Here is an excerpt, during the trial, when the prosecutor is questioning a professor who has been asked to examine Diaw’s mental condition:

‘Do you have the impression that he (Diaw) is a sex manic?’

‘Among black people, that is natural, and especially when it is a question of a white woman. They are fascinated by the whiteness of their skin which is more attractive than that of the negresses.’

‘So if Ginette Tontisane had refused to submit to him, he could have gone as far as murdering her?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed the professor.

Another passage, where the Judge questions Diaw.

‘Do you like white people?’

‘Do white people like black people?’

‘You are here to answer, not to ask questions,’ he thundered.

‘When I am shown respect, I earn it.’

‘You ought to know that reciprocity is not a condition of love. Do you like white people?’

The black man hung his head. He did not know whether to speak the truth or not…

‘Black Docker’ does not spare the heart. It tackles sensitive and difficult subject matters in a precise 120 pages. Short and powerful, it will not leave you the same. Its ‘ugly truths of an ugly time’ compel you to pause for a moment and contemplate this existence that we labour through. And perhaps because it is a semi-autobiographical work, it comes across as being unpretentious, calling a spade a spade and not a digging spoon. It is an unapologetic piece of work and one gets the sense that the author was in a state of indignation and anger when he wrote it.

I’m also presently reading a book entitled ‘Africa’s Choices—After Thirty Years of the World Bank’ by Michael Barratt Brown. This is not a novel, it’s one of those narratives that offer viewpoints and facts to back them up. It’s an eye opener and makes some compelling arguments. It looks at the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Programmes in Africa in the 1980s, why they failed, the geopolitical dynamics of Africa at the time, Africa’s debt. It also looks at the formation of the OAU, its initial ideals of a united Africa, and why a united Africa failed to materialise. Quite a mouthful! It then takes a look at the peasant economy in Africa. And such and such. It is an interesting read, one of those packed narratives that are just good to read, to learn about the history of a place from an economics point of view (I think economics is growing under my skin). Such books are good in that they give an ‘unemotional’ point of view, working on logic and facts. So many times when we talk/debate/argue about Africa, it is from an emotional point of view. So it’s nice to read something that illuminates matters in a calm and unemotional manner, giving facts to help the reader understand where the author is coming from.

I think authors of fiction are pretty lucky. You can build on the half truths and flaws of your characters, mould them into something very robust and powerful. Man has found little ways to be a little god. There are some books I’m itching to get my hands on. Chika Unigwe’s ‘On Black Sisters Street’—if her short stories are anything to go by, then ‘On Black Sisters Street’ promises to be quite a read. And the ‘Abyssinian Boy’ by Onyeka Nwelue. Interesting how the power of advertising works. The other day, I walked into a CNA bookshop in my neighbourhood, and ran into Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’. I didn’t have the money to buy it at the time, but I’d heard so many wonderful things about the book and I was tryna figure out what to trade so I could get it, my shoes or my bag lol. In the end I just stood there, reading the first page, and then the next… until I caught a shop assistant looking at me and so I had to close it and put it back. The next time I went there, ‘The Kite Runner’ had sold out, but ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, also by Khaled Hosseini, was there. But I wanted to read ‘The Kite Runner’, that’s the book I wanted. So I decided I would not get ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ until I had read ‘The Kite Runner’. It may be better than ‘The Kite Runner’, as some have said, but in my mind, nothing can be better than ‘The Kite Runner’ (in that store and at that time) until I read ‘The Kite Runner’. Yes, so much blurb about the book has brainwashed me and I refuse to buy any book from CNA until they restock ‘The Kite Runner’!

Countries, the Diaspora and Identities

2010-09-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2010

A heated debate exploded today during one of my lectures- it was sparked by a fellow Zimbabwean who stood up and proclaimed, 'Mugabe is one of the greatest leaders that ever lived.' Now, you can imagine the protests this invoked. It turns out there are different criteria for branding one 'A great leader'- according to my fellow Zimbabwean, despite leading Zimbabwe to economic, political and social demise, His excellency is a 'great leader' because he has 'won' against the odds, braved the storms and managed every ingenious method possible to stay in power. The question he was asked was, 'If Mugabe is so great and you're one hundred per cent behind him, what are you doing here in a university in South Africa? Why don't you go to one of the 'great' universities in Zim?' This led to a general debate about Zimbabwe- these are always difficult, since people have all sorts of theories about Zimbabwe. I have heard all sorts of things about my country from curious interrogators, 'We hear girls are prostituting themselves for five rands in Zimbabwe', 'You're from Zimbabwe, you poor thing!' etc etc... Of course perhaps this is said in all innocence and in good faith and concern, but it is pretty irritating, trying to convince people that you do lead a 'relatively normal' life even in Zim, yes things have been bad but you are fine, you are not one of those who are purported to be prostituting themselves for five rands and you are coping with life and yes they CAN visit Zimbabwe, we are, after all, a peace loving nation with a just few rogues, who have refined the contents of crime from the cold-blooded gun-slinging style they may be used to, to the more organised halls of corruption, the effects of which are subtle, devastating and precipitate over a long period. They will find the streets of Zimbabwe to be safer than Soweto any day! But again this is another stereotype, Soweto is a big big area, and does not only consist of shanty houses with a gun under every pillow. There are posh parts of Soweto, real posh and top-of-the-range. Well, we forever battle with stereotypes and we will always be victims or victimisers of it at some unconscious level- I remember during a Youth Summit, there was a fellow from Sudan who kept on emphasizing that he was not from the war torn part, because people were so fascinated and kept on bombarding him about his war-stricken life.And again there are all those cruel jokes made about Somalia- 'You're so thin you look like you're from Somalia' etc etc. So there are all these stereotypes all around us, which we must battle with, in order to go beneath the surface of a person and really understand them for who they really are, in order for us to see more than just what it is we think we already know. 'Selective Perception' they call it, this stereotyping, this categorising of people based on what we think we know, and most times what we know is less than what we think we know.

Which brings me to this interesting issue of identity, I suppose a person has multiple identities, which serve to function in the different roles he/she plays during the course of his/ her life. You know there's always this talk about identity and culture and 'authenticity', the embracing of one's culture. I think culture is something the 'purist Africans' will battle with very much in the future, with so much dilution thanks to the Diaspora. In the spirit of globalisation, can the intense dilution of cultures be deemed as a good thing? This dilution of course has not been deliberate, it has not been a goal but rather a consequence, due to economic, political and social (sound like a commentator) hardships faced in certain regions of the world. And of course there will not be a balance in this dilution, the scales seem to me to be tipped, in favour of the regions where the migrators choose to settle in. The BP of 'purist Africans' is set to go up. I'm thinking of my aunts and uncles who are in the Diaspora as well as their kids, my cousins. For my aunts and uncles, the dilution will not be as intense. For my cousins, it is a whole other matter, especially the young ones. The general idea is that conditions in the Diaspora are not so rosy for the average Diasporan, wiping old shrivelled buttocks is not exactly the ideal job especially with a degree from the University of Zimbabwe when it was still the Univeristy-of-Zimbabwe-creme-de-la-creme-top-notch-par-excellence. The general idea is that when things get better in beloved Zim, they ought to come back. After all, there's no place like home right? But what about their off spring? You can imagine, for them, Zim is home only on a theoretical level. They have grown up in the Diaspora and acclimatised to the Diasporan culture- they have all these intriguing accents (which are just a surface indication of the difference in culture inspite of sharing kinship) and when you speak over the phone you have to speak slowly in order to understand what the other is saying. They have gone to schools in the Diaspora, made friends there, become accustomed to the weather, trends etc. Were it time to 'come back home', do you think they would be keen to come back? There has always been this idea that the Diaspora is temporary, particularly for those who left Zimbabwe not for academic reasons or to see the big wide world, but for economic-political-and-social reasons. 'Until things get better in Zim'. But things have been slow in getting better, elections did not solve the issue when we thought they would and just when we thought things couldn't get worse they did. And so on and so on. And so in the process there have been intercultural relationships and mixed-race offspring and even offspring of a single African race will have identity issues to deal with. Of course it may seem unique to Zimbabwe because our demise is a recent phenomena- there are those countries whose 'problems' have spanned over decades and this 'brain-drain' issue began for them a long, long time ago. So, when it is time for 'true nation building' in dear old-but-not-so-old Zimbabwe, how many good ol' Zimbos will be willing to tear themselves from the sometimes-warm-sometimes-cold arms of the Diaspora? Is it practical to expect them to do so? The Diaspora does have its conveniences and comforts, no ZESA power cuts, top-of-the-range technology... certain other things Diasporans take forgranted but will certainly miss should they come back home.

Yet, Diasporans do love their homelands, in fact I think there is no greater way of really connecting with and embracing your 'identity' (being Zimbabwean etc) than being thrown out into the big wide world (well for some that is just the opportunity to annihilate the past and totally embrace new societies). As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side...until you get there. Of course embracing or shunning one's 'nationality' is also a function of circumstance. You see it here in South Africa all the time. I know of people who have 'acquired' South African IDs, as being a foreigner does not offer as many opportunities. You meet someone you know from back home on the street and they are trying their damnedest to speak even to you in their contrived Zulu accent and you're tempted to say 'Hey! It's me! You don't have to pretend!' I bet if you asked them they'd profess to have never heard of Zimbabwe lol. The other day I was in a taxi ( that's a khombi for those from home, they call them taxis here and then a taxi is a cab- a taxi is a khombi is public transport) and the driver was Shona (you can always tell Zimbabweans, Shona or Ndebele, from their accents). So he was a chatty fellow, telling the passengers not to look down upon him just because he was a taxi driver, for-your-own-information he was educated (which he was, you could tell from his conversation), where he comes from in 'Prietermaritzburg' ( Prietermaritzburg is in South Africa) people have great respect for him. In fact, he used to work as an executive for Old Mutual in 'Prietermaritzburg' but he left and bought a fleet of taxis and decided to be a taxi driver because he enjoys it very much. You can substitute 'Prietermaritzburg' with Zimbabwe and put together some hazy picture of his story. Again, those who are in South Africa illegally will do their damnedest to assimilate as much as possible into the culture. This brings to mind Noviolet Mkha Bulawayo's piece 'The droves (for my peoples)', which is a touching piece about crossing borders and its many circumstances. If you are here with your papers and happen to be an irrationally passionate fellow then you can preach about nationhood and wear a banner saying 'I'm proudly Zimbabwean' and tell everybody how excellent Zimbabweans are and South Africa's economy is the way it is largely thanks to Zimbabweans and you can even reel off a few names of some top-executives in various disciplines who are Zimbabweans and compare Zim education before all the teachers ran away to matric and all that and forget to mention those Zimbos who are fuelling the underground economy of South Africa and what not. Of course expect disaster; you never make the mistake of pointing out to your host his shortcomings and your longcomings while you are seeking shelter in his house from the fire in yours. You cannot play host to your host in his house (especially with the World Cup Coming)... are you crazy?

Again, I have written so much I have lost the plot within the plot within the plot, but I'm sure some sense ought to be found somewhere in this wordy dialogue!

Caine Workshop

2010-09-28T10:54:00.003-07:00

THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 20

Off to attend the Caine Prize Workshop in Kenya this weekend. It is the utmost, foremost, uppermost, highestmost, pleasure (let's try that with an imitation of the francais accent) to be attending this workshop. We will be working our minds, conversing with our writing souls, lost in blissful writing spirit trance. Writing to the writer is like- a year's worth of Fatty's Chocolate Chip Cookies to the Gourmand. First loves to first loves and things like that. So you know this will be like, (I have been stuck on this comma for a coupla minutes- guess that means there is no analogy for this lol). Learning time. Working time. Growing time.

MONDAY, MARCH 22, 2010

The Caine Workshop has been instructional and luminous in quite a number of ways- a deeper eye into that state of 'being a writer'. Writing seems mostly a learn-as-you-go craft, with few and varied opportunities for instruction in between (and I guess depending on where you are), and hence opportunities such as this are of much value. We are in Laikipia Conservancy in Kenya, at Oli Ari Nyiro, a beautiful site overlooking the Rift Valley. It has been a luxurious opportunity, to be here, in the company of other writers (like-minded souls), working on our craft. It gives one a sense of compactness- writing can have a very fluid, abstract sense sometimes. It has been intense and refreshingly so, one gets a sense of just how much writing one can achieve in ten days. And I must say the Kenyan landscape here is breathtaking. You get a distilled sense of yourself in its beauty. It has a calming effect, away from the chaos of city life- I now understand the fascination with Africa's grasslands. There is a spiritual presence here.

Matters of the Ndebele and His Place in Zimbabwe

2010-09-28T10:48:00.001-07:00

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2010

Well I was back home in Zim very recently, and had intended to stay for a coupla weeks, but I found myself eerily displaced from this place I call home, and it kinda scared me. I am back in South Africa, where I have always felt displaced from the moment I set foot, and I wonder if this displacement may be internal.

Close to Zim as SA is, I view it as another Diaspora. All the symptoms are there. The feeling, strong and stark and ever there, that one is an outsider; there are always these lines between one and the other; the insider and the outsider, and then lines between the outsiders themselves, the different nationalities; and then further still, from my experience with other Zimbabweans, lines between outsiders from the same place. The system itself is designed this way. Sometimes I think people hold an extra bag of fear with them, just in case an occasion rises up unexpectedly for fear. In Joburg, it is advisable that if you are a foreigner, you carry a certified copy of your ID at all times; you may be asked to produce it by the authorities, failure to which may land you in a jail cell. I guess there are too many illegals around here. There is a certain hardening of the heart out here, and who can blame anyone? People, even relatives, are never really interested in you or your business. When they say, ‘How are you?’ they want to hear that you are ‘fine’, anything otherwise and you can see their eyes glazing over. Perhaps you may get a pat on the back and a gruff ‘Things will be ok’, and that’s that. Back home in Zim, that compact sense of family is ever there; it is the hall mark of our culture, and something to be proud of. And perhaps that is how many Zimbabweans have managed to survive these past years, because of this strong family support one could fall back on. Because one could approach the family with the confidence that help of some sort would be given. Because there was never any questioning of its existence. The case of Zim is sad; it feels new to us Zimbos, as it well should, and yet it is another ironical turn out of an African state. People carry this story with them, out of their country, brandishing it like a Food Pass at a refugee camp, only to get to the other side and realise that there is nothing special about this story. It reminds me of a passage in Parselelo Kantai’s short story ‘You Wreck Her’, a tale evolving around a prostitute in Nairobi:
‘They cackle and blow smoke in your face when you speak of a lost and painful childhood when you became your mother after she died…..They tell you to save it; everybody has a copy of that story. You can sell it for an extra 500 bob to a sad man in the short time car park.’

And so you come out into the big wide world to discover that ‘everybody has a copy of that story’. In fact, being away from home instils, more than ever, that sense of identification with one’s nation. The world ran out of empathy a long time ago; now, it has mostly a condescending type of pity. And nobody wants a condescending type of pity. It can be a good thing, this ‘condescending type of pity’, even if it is not meant to be; it is like a wakeup call, that removes that sense of helplessness about one’s home and awakens a sense of responsibility that can motivate a desire for action.

It is even more ironical for the Nebeles; the Shonas have always been clear about where their home is and they have never sat on a fence about that. But the Nebeles, my tribe, oh! You just need to walk through the streets of Bulawayo to understand the devastations of the Ndebele misconception that South Africa is somehow that other home they are entitled to, that is just waiting with candles and a big creamy chocolate cake. This sense of kinship stems from history; the time when Mizilikazi broke away from Tshaka Zulu’s tribe in South Africa and moved into the Matabeleland region of what is now known as Zimbabwe. This desire for kinship with South Africa also delves from what is termed a complicated history, but may somehow not be so complicated. It is always complicated when a certain history in a people’s time is not acknowledged to the point that it festers into a series of tales that are sometimes delusional, emotional more than factual, and destructive in their unresolved state. Human beings have always been quick to lurch onto that sense of entitlement when wronged; it is a natural phenomenon, it very easily becomes the blemish upon which every subsequent wrong or fault, real or perceived to be so, is blamed. I think I may be speaking in riddles. For those who are not familiar with what I am talking about, just google Gukurahundi. I have heard many things being blamed by my tribe on this period; favouritism of other regions in the country, etc etc. It is not that simple. It never is. But it is never about what is or isn’t, it is about what is perceived to be. This mind set, in my opinion, has made its effects felt in Bulawayo. Bulawayo seems to be slowly deteriorating; it seems devoid of people, like most of its occupants have left. People seem to be dragging their feet. Slow slow. A lack of enthusiasm about their city. A shrug of the shoulder in response to the problems. Complaining and complaining and more complaining. And then another shrug. It is sad. It is like a precious treasure that has been abandoned, in search of delusional riches elsewhere. You ask the people why; they shrug and say ‘they have never really felt a part of Zimbabwe’. Now this is a rich answer that stems from pain. But I think if the very same people who say this continue this exodus into South Africa, and then return to Zimbabwe, and you ask them the same question, they will be more careful about their response. South African culture pervades Bulawayo at many levels; the fashion, the music, the way people come to South Africa for a month and suddenly every sentence starts with a ‘Mara ne?’, ‘ukukhuluma’ is suddenly ‘ukuthetha’ and so forth. It is a costly misconception; upon arrival in this ‘Promised Land’, it finally hits home that here, to the South Africans, you are Zimbabwean Ndebele or not, and that’s that. These ties of brotherhood are delusional. And so this kind of reluctance by Ndebeles to participate in matters of home, are disturbing. I heard talk of having a sort of ‘different governing body’ for the Matabeleland region, not a breaking away from the country, but a bit of ‘individualism’ if you could call it that. This was just talk between people, but it just reflects a certain state of mind, that is at times perpetrated in the limp attitudes of the way matters are approached by the Ndebele people in Zimbabwe. Again, if you ask them about the reasons for this attitude, there is always a reference to history, to how improvement is promised to the region but never followed up on. The Joshua Mqabuko International Airport, Bulwayo’s airport, under construction for the past light years, is an embarrassing cluster of buildings more befitting of a growth point, and not worthy of an international status. There is also the Joshua Mqabuko Hospital, an impressive project that remains unfinished. And the National University of Science and Technology, again in Bulawayo, an impressive university which is in use but has not yet been completed. In fact, there is a crane that stands in the University grounds, rising high in the air. It now seems like such a natural part of the landscape that jokes have been made about how, even upon completion of the University, it should remain there, as a piece of artistic impression. And so, in spite of the hardships facing our country, according to my tribe, many of these half-done projects are seen as sabotage. That is what they perceive. And so they have retreated into what they see as a justified apathy. But sometimes this apathy is self-destructive. Somebody, a relative who is Ndebele and lives in Harare, the capital city, once pointed out to me what she perceived as a certain difference in attitudes between the Ndebele businessman and the Shona businessman. She said, the Shona business man will thrive, go to his home town/ rural home and improve the roads. The Ndebele businessman will thrive, bathe in the glow of his success and not lift a finger to improve his home town/ rural home. She gave a few examples of people she knew. This, of course, is a generalisation, but it serves to illustrate the detachment that the Ndebele seems to feel from his homeland. Which is not healthy. Not healthy at all. As the country moves towards ‘nation building’, it seems these are some of the issues that need to be addressed, for an effective way forward. The problem is, some of these issues are delicate (such as Gukurahundi) and are not even acknowledged by the leaders of the nation. See, the problem with issues such as Gukurahundi is that if they are not addressed, they become the powerful basis around which many ills, which may have nothing to do with them, are pivoted. There was a ‘ Summary Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980 to 1988’ entitled ‘Breaking the Silence and Building True Peace’, compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and the Legal Resource Foundation, in 1999, which sought to give something of a balanced view of theGukurahundi period and advocate of peace and healing and not to, as they said, bring forth any accusations.

The report starts:
‘People who live in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands know only too well what happened to them during the 1980s. Their lives were affected in serious ways by both Government troops and also by dissidents and Youth Brigades at this time.

However, most people from other parts of Zimbabwe still have no idea what it was like for those who were suffering. They have no idea how people still suffer as a result of the violence that took place. People who were affected also do not have ways of talking to people in other parts of the country about what happened. Ordinary people all over Zimbabwe, need to know what happened during those years in their own country….people in affected regions can read how their history has been told, and people in unaffected regions can learn about if for the first time.’

But really, the issue has never been addressed much. The result? You just mention Gukurahundi in Bulawayo, and see how people open their mouths. ‘Ah!’ they say ‘You want to disappear?’ These are residual effects of that time. Suspicion, to the point that even the mere mention of that name, instils fear. And the effects on people from my generation? I never really knew about Gukurahundi until I was a teenager, and I never heard about it from my family. I never heard them speak about it when I was growing up. There were usually a lot of tribal connotations about the Shona tribe. Up to today, I have a relative who does not even entertain job applications from people who come from the Shona tribe. A Shona name is enough to guarantee that one will not get a job in his company. He will not entertain the Shona language to be spoken in his home. When another relative got married to a Shona, he did not attend the wedding. So far go the extremes of his resentment. According to the ‘Breaking the Silence’ report, the Gukurahundi period was not designed to be a civil war; it was not meant to be a Shona versus Ndebele war, there was state involvement in a bid to contain dissident activities and other ‘clandestine’ activities and gruesome atrocities and all the other delicate things one should take care when talking about etc etc etc etc etc. But emotions do not distil matters so far, especially without much room for dialogue on the matter. Growing up, I was not exposed to excessive tribalism, I had and still have many great friends who hail from the Shona tribe, in fact my generation is viewed as the ‘hope generation’, that can transcend these tribal tensions. Mild tensions, compared to other parts of Africa, but tensions nonetheless.

So one day I asked my family about what it was like during the Gukurahundi period. You hear a few personal stories, and suddenly the matters of tribalism are no longer black and white. You begin to understand why people are the way they are. And the issue becomes how to address the root of the problem, not to chop down the tree but to totally remove its roots. A tall order. So, talking about Gukurahundi with my peers, both Shona and Ndebele, I could never understand why my Shona friends would quickly brush the matter aside and advocate that it should be a period that should be swept under the carpet and forgotten. Move on, they would say. The past is the past. I never understood it, until, when talking, I realised that they had no idea about what happened during that time. There are regions in the country that do not know what happened during this period. And so, on the one hand, you have a tribe that is nursing anger and resentment, and on the other, a tribe that seems to bear little grudge in return because they are not familiar with the roots of this resentment. Many Shonas I know are simply baffled about the Ndebeles’ strong tribalism; besides the lukewarm tribal clashes in terms of cultures etc from both sides, for the Shonas, there is no bone to chew. And so in the end, it seems, for my tribe, that they are harbouring all sorts of hurt, nursing it and hating an enemy that seems unaware. It is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. In the end matters that in the present state of things have weak ties to this period are blamed on it; such as the Shona tribe’s economic power, for instance. Which should not be surprising, since the Shona people make up 80% to 84% of the country, and the Ndebeles only 10% to 15% (Wikipedia statistics). And so the matter should not be about the Shona people’s economic power, but the Ndebele people’s lack of innovative applications, their apathy, their hapless attitudes. And how, the nation as a whole, can aid in addressing these matters and putting the past where it belongs, behind and in a peaceful state. The Germans and the Jews dealt with it on a much larger scale; the Holocaust. And so we can too. It is a sad, sad thing and I wonder, on the way to ‘nation building’, where the Ndebele sees himself. Zimbabwe is our home, and as such, needs our nurturing and care. We, the Ndebele people, need to find our place in it, otherwise we may find ourselves literally belonging nowhere.

A Look At The Tree That Spawned The Seed

2010-09-28T10:05:00.002-07:00

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 2010

Have been tryna write a 'life story' piece on Lawrence Tshuma, but it's proving 'difficult' in so many dimensions. So have decided to leave that endeavour alone for now. Have turned it instead into an exploration, 'Getting to know Lawrence the Man', to add to my recollections of Lawrence the Father. Which again is complex. Been trying to get hold of Lawrence's book, 'A Matter of (In)justice: Law, State and the Agrarian Question in Zimbabwe', which is proving nearly impossible since it is out of print. Am looking and looking and looking, if anyone sees/ has this book, please let me know; I need this book, absolutely absolutely. I owe what I am today to my mother, totally, and what I can now choose to be to my father, in ways I cannot now begin to explain. That search for identity. Sometimes I meet people who knew Lawrence, and it is fascinating to learn about a parent in ways you never knew him, to hear how others viewed him. And constantly trying to measure, how much of a parent you retain. Was eleven when my father passed away; it was sudden, a car accident, during a visit to Zim. He lived and worked overseas, saw him during holidays, mostly Christmas, and we would write to each other. Came across a letter of his to me; at some point in my child's life I determined I wanted to be a prophet (must have been after a really captivating religious study lesson!) and so in this letter Lawrence was trying to find out why his daughter had switched from wanting to be a lawyer like him to wanting to be a prophet. I actually believed I would get paid for it, like a proper profession. Haha. You gotta love a child's mind. Anyway, the Calling has not come so :-) So Lawrence would write to me in careful, measured, short sentences. Like 'Look at Janet. See how Janet jumps. Janet jumps because...' Funny reading them now, but I suppose at the time, trying to write in a manner that could be understood by a 7/8 year old was no laughing matter.

When I was in grade 3 (8 years old) I wrote how I had visited my father in Italy, and how there was snow in Italy. It was a lie of course, as I had notbeen to Italy, but I suppose it was a child's fantasy of mine. So my teacher fell for it, and asked me to stand up in front of the class and tell them about my trip on the plane. And, with the boldness of a child who reads too much fiction and thinks she can trick an adult into a Secret Seven fantasy, I stood up and went on to tell very very tall tales about my imaginary trip on an imaginary plane. No doubt the teacher caught on the lie, but at the time I believed I had her and my classmates were taken! So during a visit, my dad read this tall tale about my visit to Italy, and decided to honour this child's fantasy of mine. I was ten when I went to visit; he found me close to tears at the airport because he came a bit late to pick me up and I, of course, having travelled all these thousands of kilometres on my own, was overwhelmed to find myself in this huge airport with all these white faces none of which I knew! Lawrence was a stubborn father; I was an even more stubborn daughter. And so, eager to show off my ten year old's culinary skills, I cajoled him into allowing me to fry an egg for him; it came out all right :-) And then, after even more cajoling, I got him to allow me to watch 'The Titanic', which was then a big hit; so I first watched 'The Titanic' side-by-side Lawrence, and during those 'adultish scenes' (like when Jack was perched on the deck sketching nude women) Lawrence would turn to me with a look that said 'I told you so!', and I, of course, would offer a shy smile. Haha. Memories. The things children believe they can do. After a few days Lawrence found me copying out, in my ten year old's handwriting, an Italian dictionary, and when he laughed and said, 'You can have the dictionary', I was delighted; it had not occurred to me that I could have it. Lawrence had a small tv and lots and lots of books; used to marvel at those books with their big words and serious looking covers. I did think my father was the world. He was a lawyer; I wanted to be a lawyer. Nothing in my mind seemed greater than him. And that is probably because I am his only child, and hence I felt, at that time, that somehow I was the centre of his world. If he delayed to reply my letters, I would complain. If he missed a telephone arrangement, I would sulk. When he dedicated his book to me, something swelled in that child's heart of mine; a simple joy at seeing a printed message from your father. You know when you are a child even the smallest of things are big. You get immense joy out of seemingly small things, and that is the beauty of being a child. I wanted always to please my father, and I did not understand then, why he had to be so far away, why an adult had to learn still and go to a school called university to do a thing called Masters and PhD, learning still like a child ; I often badgered him about that.

My father came from a very modest background; he grew up in rural eMpandeni, in Plumtree; his father, my grandfather, was a migrant worker and so he grew up very close to his mother, my grandmother. And hence he was modest, and would always question me whenever I took things forgranted. I remember, in Italy, when I said something and added, 'Next time when I come...' he replied, 'Who said there will be a next time?' and I remember I felt mildly embarrassed. Haha. Memories. And well, I guess because I did not live with my father, I don't have memories of seeing him angry, or of beating me when I was naughty, as fathers do; I suppose because we were far away from each other, time spent together became more focused, or something like that.

And it's now that it frustrates me, that I have these compressed memories of Lawrence, squeezed to fit into the first ten years (less since as babies the ordering of memory lacks articulation) of my life. And of course when somebody dies they have an impact on your life just as when they are alive, only now in ways over which they have no control, in ways which you as a child have no control. It is our interaction with memory, and then of course when somebody dies, they are many different things in different dimensions; a box of memories, a grave, a piece of paper; a death certificate which you need to produce on occasion, as validity that they are, at least, that they once were. And then sometimes, when somebody dies, and is no longer there to speak for themselves, to apportion their heart to loved ones, loved ones may want to apportion pieces of the heart to themselves, and in the process some feel they deserve more of the heart than others, and in the end all they end up doing is ravaging the heart into a million irreparable pieces. And then sometimes when people die they live in the mouths of others, and the one thing that used to get to me was the statement 'Were your father alive, he would not be happy about this this and this, he would not like this this and this...' the point being, really, at the end of the day, that were Lawrence alive, a lot of things would then not have been as they were, hence I found it pointless to have isolated events pulled out for scrutiny as to whether they would be to my father's liking.

So now, that thing about trying to find out just how much of a parent you retain. I suppose a connection is there or not there according to one's understanding. I am always delighted to find something or other in my father's stuff that alludes to writing in some form; I mean writing does not necessarily have to be an 'inherited thing', but then again, it can be; does it really matter? Probably not. It is the writing itself that matters. I guess searching for identity becomes, at some stage, a circular game, you walk and walk and walk and follow a trail and at the end of the day you find you are back to yourself, and you wonder, is it your own trail you have been following all this time?

A musing from my father in relation to writing:
'I am not sure I have found my niche. It so happens that I have written a few things and that a few people I know think well of the few things that I have written. Knowing myself, I will probably get bored after a while. The way I look at things is that one can never get bored of writing. There is always something new to write about. I remember reading this book by Julian Barnes entitled 'The History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters'. It's a collection of short stories. One of my favourite stories is about death and going to heaven. Everyone who dies goes to heaven where they can do all the things they have ever wanted to do. Nothing is impossible. You can still die in heaven - but you have to wish to die in order to die. The longest survivors are lawyers and writers - lawyers because they argue their cases again and when they are through they argue someone else's cases. Writers write their stories again. So, with writing I believe there are always new things to write about. Given my knack of self-reinvention, I could always find something to write about...'
'If we could fill the human mind with positive thoughts all the time, the world would be a better place to live in. But pleasant thoughts are the exception rather than the norm. The depravity of the human mind knows no limits. Unfortunately, no ideology, religion included, has managed to fill the human mind with pleasant thoughts only. Primo Levi and those who have survived earthly hells probably have lived life asking themselves why human beings could do such things to each other. Perhaps their failure to find answers to such questions forced them to terminate their lives - when they cannot 'bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' to quote Shakespeare, they take their lives...It's sad when people start asking whether life is worth living and they cannot come up with a positive answer...'
'...I have never been a poet - I tried to write a few bad verses when I was out of school during the war at the age of 17. Wasn't much but the lamentations of a poor boy who had lost his future. Since then I have stayed away from poetry - I am a prose man - very prosaic in the way I do things and never given to poetic license and extravagance.'

Sometimes, the anchors in our lives, or the source of a part of our identity, lie in things/ people that are no longer present in the physical realm. It becomes complicated, trying to discover these elements; but then again, nothing about life was ever straightforward.

Memorable Scribblings in Aminatta Forna's 'The Memory Of Love'

2010-09-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, JULY 11, 2010

This, no doubt, is one of the best books I have read this year, and I think ever. The writing is careful, clear, crisp, oh, just beautiful. The opening line, 'On the iron-framed bed a single, scant sheet has moulded itself into the form of the human beneath.' And from there we are taken away. I think the author's gift lies in her ability to describeeverything in a scene, giving it that wholesome-ness, giving a character depth just by the world that surrounds him. The writing ispatient, yes, that is the word, patient writing, that is not in a hurry to go anywhere, that says to the reader, 'Take it easy, we are going to get to where we need to go'. From reading this lovely book, I get the feeling that Aminatta Forna has the ability to write about anything, her vivid descriptions just have that quality. This book has its 'themes', of a ravaged country that has come out of a civil uprising, rebels and armies and destruction, yet, really, it is not a thematic book; its strength does not lie so much in the themes as it does in the characters; I think the characters could very simply stand on their own. Oh, and the author is very creative; we shift from first person to third person and just when we think it is told from the point of view of two characters, Elias Cole, who is our first person protagonist, and Adrian Lockheart, who is our third person protagonist, we are introduced to a third person view of Kai Mansaray somewhere along in the book. This book does not follow writing rules, it seems to want to do what it does, we have first person and third persons put in where they fit, and it works, that is the lovely thing, it works really well. And in the middle of all this beautiful characterisation, we have intertwining plots, where the lives of the protagonists intersect in surprising and sometimes delightful, sometimes heartbreaking ways, that good-old story telling. This is a complex book, a complex story, a book about getting to know people, its beauty is in its ordinary characters, ordinary in the sense that they are not some grand characters on the scale of social class, extraordinary in the author's stark individualisation of each character.

Here is the synopsis at the back of the book:

'Adrian Lockheart is a psychologist escaping his life in England. In the dirt and dust of Freetown he befriends a young surgeon, Kai Mansaray, and begins to build a new life as Kai makes plans to leave. In the hospital Adrian encounters an elderly man, Elias Cole, whose memories are recorded in notebooks and reveal an obsession with Saffia - a woman he loved - and Julius, her fiery husband. In a country torn apart by repression and war, four individual lives collide in a story about friendship, understanding, absolution and the indelible effects of the past...'

There is a part in the book where the author juxtaposes suspense, where Elias Cole and Adrian Lockheart are in riddling situations and the author balances the suspense by leaving a character hanging in one chapter and moving on to the situation of the other character, the suspense is tremendous and beautifully balanced; I did not know whether to run from one character to the other, and this part of the book kept me reading well into the night.

You can actually see the work that the author put into this piece of writing; she is precise in her descriptions of surgical procedures and pyschological illnesses; Kai is a surgeon and Adrian is a psychologist. Saffia is into botany, and here again, the author shows off a wide range of knowledge on plant species. Adrian is also a bird lover; again, the author proves knowledgeable in this area. Interesting to learn; in an interview with the Financial Times, the author says 'I temporarily became a surgeon for Memory of Love. I spent two weeks in an operating theatre, watching amputations, and I loved it.' The effort and dedication put into this book is evident in its quality.

There are two scenes in the book that dragged for me; one is a scene towards the end when Adrian goes to visit his mother in Norfolk; I was impatient to get back to 'the rest of the story'. The other is the last Chapter in the book; Chapter 56. It is a chapter of tying up the ends, the 'loose ends', which I thought were beautiful in their loose state, I thought the story could have ended perfectly well in the penultimate chapter, for me the last chapter tied up the ends and ended neatly in a manner that was different in tone from the rest of the story. Nevertheless, this does not detract from, all in all, a story very well told. Brilliant stuff from Aminatta Forna; visit the author's website http://www.aminattaforna.com/.

The Kite Runner

2010-09-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 2010

I have wanted to read this book for a while now; after reading Khaled Hosseini's second novel 'A Thousand Splendid Suns', which I didn't enjoy, I was a bit sceptical about 'The Kite Runner'. But, I have to say, 'The Kite Runner' is simply astounding. Many thanks to Emmanuel Sigauke who was kind enough to send me this book, along with a Spring 2010 copy of the Consumes River Journal, of which he is an editor. Thanks Emmanuel!

'The Kite Runner' is simply one of those books that carries its own originality, a book that very simply stands out in a way that 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' did not for me. 'The Kite Runner' tells the story of a friendship between two boys, Amir, a privileged Pashtun boy from a wealthy family, and Hassan, his Hazara servant. Hassan is the son of Ali, who is the servant of Amir's father, Baba. The first part of the story takes us through the friendship between Amir and Hassan, their days spent playing and exploring as boys would in the streets of Kabul. Hassan is a loyal friend to Amir, inspite of the fact that Amir is ashamed to openly acknowledge him as his friend among his peers, because of his Hazara lineage. As pointed out by Assef, a neighbourhood bully whom Amir labels a 'sociopath', 'Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood.' The book is riddled throughout with such ethnic stigmas and portrays a time in Afghanistan of a strong societal order based on stark ethnic divisions. Amir struggles to gain the affections of Baba, who is disturbed that his son 'is always buried in books or shuffling around the house like he's lost in some dream' and is worried because he, Baba, 'wasn't like that'. Amir gains comfort from Baba's close friend, Rahim Khan, who seems to understand him more than Baba does and grants him the attention which Baba fails to give him. It is only after Amir wins a Kite Fighting tournament, with the help of Hassan, that he and Baba share a momentray closeness. But it is also during this event that something happens which changes Amir in profound ways, the turning moment which he alludes to in the first lines of the opening chapter of the book:

'I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it.'

This turning point in the lives of both Amir and Hassan also becomes a turning point in the tone of the book, a turning point in their friendship. To divulge what this turning point is would, of course, spoil it for those who have not read the book. So dare I not.

In March 1981, Baba and Amir flee to Pakistan and then California, after the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. They build a life in Fermont, California, in a world far flung from their privileged existence in Kabul. Amir becomes a successful writer, marries and lives what appears to be a serene life. However, the past, as he says in the opening chapter, cannot be buried, and he eventually finds himself back in his homeland, now a bombed landscape of craters and a society of ailing scars carved by the iron rule of the Taliban, to confront shocking and painful family secrets and, as Baba's friend Rahim Khan puts it, to find 'a way to be good again'.

The Kite Runner is a story of twists and turns, a clever and compact plot, a beautiful and touching tale to the very end, beautifully written and well executed. It leaves imprints on the memory, and a satisfied sigh at the turn of the last page. It is an astounding first book, and I think here, Khaled Hosseini was at his very best.

Bongani Ncube-Zikhali wins the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2010

2010-09-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

A big congratulations to my friend Bongani Ncube-Zikhali, who has won The Intwasa National Short Story Competition 2010. This is wonderful news. The Intwasa Short Story Competition is Zimbabwe's biggest short story competition to date, with entries flowing from all corners of the country and from Zimbabweans beyond. So this is really big and really great.

I have to say, I always knew something like this was coming from Bongani. He is an extremely talented writer and Global Leader. His writing is simply beautiful, and you just have to keep watching the space; there is yet more literary fire from this young man. He is made of really solid intellectual and aggressive material, his resume speaks for itself:

Bongani Ncube-Zikhali

- is a British Council Global Changemaker.
- attended the Africa Youth Summit 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa, and the Harare Youth Summit 2010 in Harare, Zimbabwe
- attended the World Economic Forum on Africa 2010 in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where he participated in discussions with , amongst others, President Robert Mugabe, Graca Machel, the deputy President of the World Bank & Professor Klaus Schwab.
- visited, upon the invitation of President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique, Mozambique in Aug-Sept 2010 where he was part of a delegation which toured the Mozambican Govt's Youth Development Efforts
- is a contributing writer in the 'Voices of Africa' project for the Mail & Guardian, South Africa
-was published in the 'Echoes of Young Voices I ' & 'Echoes of Young Voices II: Silent Cry' anthologies put together by 'amabooks publishers and sponsored by the British Council
-was published in the Africa Report Aug-Sept 2010 edition

The stuff of a leader wouldn't you say?

Below is an excerpt of Bongani's winning story, which is entitled 'Purple', and which has been excerpted with the author's permission. A teaser for the readers, enjoy!

But always that image of my home remained in my mind, called out to me in my dreams. The picture of jacaranda blossoms floating down onto the car as we drove on our way from church, of the fountain at Centenary Park shooting jets of water into the air as if daring the heavens with a display of their majesty. The sound of laughter with my friends as we wandered aimlessly through town on the weekend. Images of a past gone by, morning memories of forgotten dreams. Memories that I try to search for as the bus arrives in the City of Kings from Johannesburg. It’s been sixteen hours and not for the first time, I wish I could have afforded the money to fly all the way. But such is life; regret is for those who have the luxury of living in the past.

I can make out the dark shapes of buildings as the bus passes through the dead of night into the city centre. The moon hangs silently in the sky, the only source of light as most of the street lamps are dead; I had been warned but the reality still surprises me. The first hint that my portrait of this half remembered place might not be accurate anymore; that the years have not been kind. We stop at the bus station and collective sighs of relief fill the place as people stand up to leave. I am slower than most, I am in no rush to leave. I know that no one is waiting for me outside, that only the still night air will welcome me home.

Beautiful. Great stuff from Bongani; it can only get better.

And Say Amen...Wanelisa Albert's 'My Prayer To Western Governments'

2010-09-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

My Prayer To Western Governments

by Wanelisa Albert

'This prayer, to you Western Governments
Comes as a response to the many appeals to develop Africa
Before we can get down to the dirty business of ‘enlightenment’ from our primitive native state
Can we, just as you have done, enslave some of your population to work on our cocoa plants?
Can we, just as you have done, use your people as commodity to be bargained as lowly as animals?
Can we rely on your cheap (huge understatement) labour to build our economies?
Can we ‘discover’ your lands as if there were no people and cultures that thrived before the arrival of our arrogance?
Can we then wipe out some of your ethnicities and put what is left of a people into reserves?
Can we then import our cultures and civilization and enforce it upon your people under the pretence of Modernisation?
Can we then write endless academic journals about how our dark skin proves us to more human and better able to reason?
Can we rewrite your histories according to our bias and feed younger generations’ bullshit about how barbaric people like Lincoln and Winston were?
Or better yet, only start telling your history upon our ‘heroic’ arrival?
Can we import, just as you did, dead naked women into our galleries and marvel at the ‘deformity’ of their flat bottoms, light skin and silky hair?
And upon our ‘discovering’ of your home, could it be possible to send our worst criminals to inhabit the land?
Would it be too much to ask if we could make Zulu and Swahili the two main international languages spoken by the rest of the world?
Then all your future generations would study University education using them and occasionally be accused of academic incompetence.
Can we set a conference in Lagos and construct countries that don’t exist and cut and paste new borders?
Force French, Germans, Spanish, Italians and Austrians to see themselves as a nation, and when they conflict contribute it to the nature of their savagery?
Furthermore, can we then exploit all your mineral resources and armies to fight in a world war that is against victimisation of a people when we are doing the same in your countries?
Enact infrastructure that’s only conducive to export your materials to our countries and not for the improvement of your people?
So that when you force us to leave, destroy the infrastructure so that you are ‘underdeveloped’ like the French did in Madagascar?
What I’m trying to say is
Basically fuck you over and then borrow you money to fix our mess....or at least the mess we started
Import Gods that are coincidentally the same colour as our skin and favour mostly our African way of life?
Leaving out huge chunks about equality and love for only our people, tell you that our God destined you to be our subjects but for you not to worry as things get better when you die.
Enact statues of our racist mother *uckers all over your cities and name universities after them so that the brutality of their legacies are engraved in the hearts of generations to come.....
So what do you think?'

Piece posted with the author's permission. What was it that Steve Biko said again? 'It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality'. Wanelisa Albert is a South African poet par excellence, first met her in Zambia in 2007. Yes. Yes yes yes. I know. Yes. This one deserves a framed space on that 18 acre site on the East side of Manhattan. You know, the site they call the Headquarters of the United Nations of the World.