Writing Free

By Weaver Press

In this fifth anthology of Zimbabwean short stories from Weaver Press fifteen writers respond to the topic of writing free, and offer their thoughts about how and why they wrote as they did. The stories reflect a wide variety of freedoms: from tyranny, from hunger, from abuse, from the shackles of tradition, and even from the traditional constraints of narrative convention. But there are cautionary tales, too. Political change may be liberating for the adults who suffered for it, but will their children share in the euphoria of new-found freedom? Will a departure from domestic poverty to the calm waters of the diaspora deliver all that was hoped for it? Is the grass always greener beyond the fence of a stifling marriage? Zimbabwe has had more than its share of social and material deprivation in recent years, and people's responses have taken many forms. Writing Free offers an engaging and kaleidoscopic sample of these, and in doing so gives an intimate portrait of a country in transition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Weaver Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781779221780

Book preview

Writing Free

Writing Free

edited by

Irene Staunton

Published by Weaver Press, Box A1922, Avondale, Harare. 2011

<www.weaverpresszimbabwe.com>

© This collection Weaver Press

© Each individual story, the author

Typeset by Weaver Press

Cover Design: Danes Design, Harare

Printed by: Benaby Printing and Publishing, Harare

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-77922-157-5

Contents

Running In Zimbabwe – Jonathan Brakarsh

Miss McConkey of Bridgewater Close – Petina Gappah

Crossroads – Tendai Huchu

Time’s Footprints – Ethel Kabwato

The Situation – Donna Kerstein

The Novel Citizen – Ignatius Mabasa

An Intricate Deception – Daniel Mandishona

The Missing – Isabella Matambanadzo

Shamisos – NoViolet Mkha

When The Moon Stares – Christopher Mlalazi

Eloquent Notes on a Suicide: Case of the Silent Girl – Blessing Musariri

Danfo Driver – Ambrose Musiyiwa

The Donor’s Visit – Sekai Nzenza

Eyes On – Fungisayi Sasa

African Wife – Emmanuel Sigauke

‘Writing free’ … words that perhaps offer a small provocation, a small challenge to writers to extend their boundaries, to think something through from a lateral perspective, to approach a topic differently, to turn a persepctive inside out. Good writing searches beneath superficial exteriors, seeks for insights that resonate, reaches beyond the known, the clichéd, the tendency to evade what is hard to confront.

In this collection, each writer helps us to explore and appreciate an idea anew. As Anaïs Nin aptly wrote, ‘The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say’.

Freedom is something that we often don’t realise we possess, until it is taken away.

Irene Staunton

Authors’ biographies and commentaries on Writing Free

Jonathon Brakarsh is a health professional and writer who moved to Zimbabwe in 1993. He began his career working in the off-off-Broadway theatre district in New York City as a playwright and stage manager. Zimbabwe is a continuous source of inspiration for his stories as each day presents challenges which Zimbabweans face with grace, resilience and ingenuity.

‘Running in Zimbabwe’ was inspired by the announcement from Irene Staunton, seeking contributions to Weaver Press’s anthology Writing Free. After reading her e-mail, three stories, which had been sitting in my mind, suddenly started coalescing, fighting for places in the larger narrative. Being given the opportunity to ‘write free’ was an offer I could not refuse. So, I spent an intense period of time writing and revising. What emerged was a story about the desire most people have for freedom, and how the oppression present in Zimbabwe insinuates itself into every action of life. Love, a sense of belonging and the social fabric which bonds neighbours and relatives together can dilute the poisons that have mixed into the motion of our daily lives. How we obtain our vision of freedom continues to be discovered. This story puts these issues on the table using black humour, irony and a hope for change. Thanks to my son, Sam, for suggesting an ending to this story, which until recently was in search of itself.

Petina Gappah is the author of An Elegy for Easterly (2009), a collection of short stories which was awarded the Guardian First Book Award and short-listed for the Orwell Book Prize, the Los Angeles Times First Book Award, the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award and Zimbabwe's National Arts Merit Award. It has been published in more than a dozen languages. Taking a sabbatical break from her career as an international trade lawyer in Geneva, Petina currently lives in Harare, from where she writes, travels and chairs the Board of the Harare City Library. Her first novel will be published in 2012.

At the heart of my story, ‘Miss McConkey of Bridgewater Close’, is an exploration of the social burdens that came with Zimbabwe's freedom, with its independence, particularly the burdens borne by the black children who were the first to go to formerly ‘whites only’ schools and thus integrated these schools. I was one of those children. The sharpest memory I have of those days is the constant fear that I had done or said something wrong, something that would expose me to the stares and humiliating comments of my classmates. While the nation was celebrating its independence, while black parents were celebrating the opening up of educational opportunities that had been closed to their children, these same children were experiencing freedom as agony. However, my story is also about another kind of being free, it is about the freedom that comes from forgiveness, the freedom that comes with letting go of the memory of pain.

Tendai Huchu, author of the Hairdresser of Harare was born in Bindura, Zimbabwe. He has a great love of literature, and currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

My first thought when I was asked to submit a short story for Writing Free was, ‘I’m not getting paid for this am I?’

The ‘Writing’ part was easy to understand but the ‘Free’ left so much breadth for imagination – an artistic licence to create anything at all. In imagining ‘Crossroads’ I fused childhood memories with fiction and borrowed styles from authors I admire. I thought the narrative of a man bound to his wife and job in a foreign country reminiscing on his careFree childhood would fit well in the anthology, but if you look at the story closely, even this idealised childhood has subtle limitations imposed upon it.

Ethel Irene Kabwato was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe into a creative family and has a BA in Media Studies from the Zimbabwe Open University. She participated in the British Council Crossing Borders Project in 2004 and has had her poetry published in the anthology Sunflowers in your Eyes. Currently, she is working on a project called Slum Cinema, a voluntary initiative that seeks to empower disadvantaged communities through multimedia work. Her inspiration is derived from her two daughters, Nadia and Wynona.

‘Footprints of Time’ is a story set in rural Zimbabwe after the inception of the Government of National Unity. The story explores the theme of migration and how it has affected some Zimbabwean families. My story can be defined as ‘writing free’ because it centres on the disturbances that rocked the country after the disputed March 29 elections in 2008, and the choices that people made in response to the situation. In this case, the main character, Steve, who is now based in the United Kingdom, struggles to come to terms with the death of his wife, Hannah, whom he abandoned after she had been gang-raped.

Donna Kirstein was born in 1985. Raised in Zimbabwe, she has led a fairly nomadic life, growing up in various towns and farms during which she developed a passion for reading. She has always harboured a secret desire to write and she has recently been fortunate enough to study towards a joint degree in Fine Art, English and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester in the UK. She intends to continue travelling and to return home to Zimbabwe one day soon.

‘The Situation’ is an experimental short story that stems from the frustration of reading and watching the news about the problems in Zimbabwe. In writing the story, I was strongly influenced by news stories about the crisis. My story offers four voices: the three voices in the main section are fragmented, and can be read individually or in varying combinations. The concept is that no single voice can be wholly right or wholly wrong. ‘The Situation’ was inspired by newspaper articles but takes as its starting point the resilience of Zimbabweans. ‘Writing Free’ is a positive concept, and can be seen as a celebration of the will to survive and adaptability of Zimbabweans in the face of difficulty. Both ‘The Situation’ and ‘Writing Free’ represent writing with the freedom of individual voices and writing a way into a new future; the concept allows for self-determination, regardless of style, genre or ideas. It’s about moving forward with hope for the future.

Ignatius Tirivang ani Mabas a is a writer and storyteller who primarily writes in Shona. Although now well-known as a poet and novelist, Ignatius says, ‘I started telling stories before I could write, re-telling the stories my grandmother told me, and adding new twists to the plot. You could say that this was the process by which I became a creative writer.’ He has published two novels to date: Ndafa Here? and Mapenzi both of which have won local awards, and he has poems and short stories published on various websites. In 2010, Ignatius was the writer and storyteller in residence at the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba in Canada for three and half months.

‘The Novel Citizen’ is an almost bizarre, multi-layered, metaphorical story, that attempts to explore certain thought processes in the life of a writer and the art of writing using madness as a device. What makes this story exciting to me is how it is being told by a vagrant who invites the listener to be an active participant and finish the story for him when he gets murdered by the real writer of the story. Yet, there is the question, who owns the story? Who is the teller of the story? What is the role of a writer and how ‘alive’ do the characters in a novel become? The novel, through this story, is a contested area and readers and characters are not passive.

Danie l Mandishona is an architect. He was born in Harare in 1959 and brought up by his maternal grandparents in Mbare (then known as Harari township). In 1976 he was expelled from Goromonzi Secondary School and lived in London from 1977-92. He first studied Graphic Design then Architecture at the Bartlett School, University College London. He now has his own architectural practice in Harare. His short stories have been published in various anthologies, and he has his own published collection in White Gods, Black Demons.

‘Freedom without sacrifice is like a mirage in the desert...’

George’s domestic problems with his pregnant wife Helen stem from his womanising and late nights. His entire existence has led to one calamity after another. One night, after yet another bruising war of words with his wife, he storms off into the night to drink off his frustrations at his usual haunts. His aimless meanderings through the city centre eventually lead him to a crowded bar where he meets Sophie, one of his numerous paramours. It is only when George returns to her dingy lodgings that his conscience finally gets the better of him. In a selfliberating act he flees naked into the night, finally realising that his fate is not at the mercy of the gods but lies firmly in his own hands.

Isabella Matambanadzo (Ms.) is a Zimbabwean feminist. Born in 1973, she was raised with a deep awareness of her country’s struggles for liberation and self-determination, which has influenced her life’s path. Her love for the arts won her a prestigious Reuters Foundation scholarship to study Journalism, Literature and Theatre Studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. In addition to working on the campus newspaper, serving on the founding team of the Cue TV, the Grahamstown Arts Festival television channel, and broadcasting on the campus radio station RMR, she supported herself by working as a waitress and reading audio books at a centre for the blind. She graduated with triple majors, Summa cum Laude and achieved Dean’s List recognition and Academic Colours in 1999. Isabella enjoys reading, writing, painting, gardening and making jewellry.

My story, ‘The Missing’, focuses on a couple’s romantic reminiscences which are disrupted by an unexpected, yet common event. Set in a country where ghosts still live, this is an intimate story about children in search of their mysterious past. A truth they can never quite know, or discover. A truth that cannot be laid to a peaceful rest but one that will certainly set them free.

NoViolet Mkha from Bulawayo is currenty living in the United States. She recently received an MFA from Cornell University and is completing work on a novel. Her short story ‘Hitting Budapest’ won the Caine Prize, 2011.

‘Shamisos’ was written from a space of freedom that as a writer I find both gratifying and dizzying; especially now, knowing what I know about the experiences of some artists in places – which do not need mentioning – where they cannot freely express themselves. To me, therefore, ‘writing free’ means that I am telling the story that I want and choose to tell, in my truest voice, and on my own terms. This is where I am now, no matter what happens.

Christopher Mlalazi is the Nordic Africa Institute 2011 Guest Writer in Uppsala Sweden. In 2010 he was the Villa Aurora Guest Writer in Los Angeles, USA. Prolific as a prose writer and playwright, in 2008 he was the co-winner of the Oxfam Novib PEN Freedom of Expression Award at the Hague for theatre, and in 2009 was awarded a NAMA award for his short story collection, Dancing With Life:Tales From The Township. He was nominated for another NAMA for his 2009 novel, Many Rivers. In 2010 he won a NAMA for his play Election Day, which played to full houses. He has also published short stories extensively both in Zimbabwe and internationally. His latest play, Colours of Dreams, also opened to a full house at the Harare International Festival of the Arts in 2011.

The concept ‘Writing Free’ is the embodiment of the divine search to extend the creative process into realms where there are no boundaries, where taboos are scrutinised and cast aside, and where all forms of mental fetter, be they inhuman or humane (some humane acts can be retrogressive) are reduced to one big comic act. A world that writes, talks, plays and competes freely is a blessing that can only enrich our lives.

Blessing Musariri s a published and award-winning author with two childen’s books to date, Rufaro's Day and Going Home: A Tree's Story. Her poetry has been published in Sunflowers in your Eyes and on the Poetry International website, as well as in various anthologies. Her short stories have been published in African Love Stories and in Women Writing Zimbabwe. She currently resides in Zimbabwe but treasures opportunities to travel within Africa and experience different local cultures. She mistakenly believed she would be a lawyer but came to her senses after sitting and passing the English Bar Finals in 1997. Blessing also holds an MA in Diplomatic Studies from the University of Westminster.

‘The truth shall set you free.’

The promise of freedom to experiment opened me up to a new kind of story, a different narrative construction. In the same way, in his last hours, the main character feels the freedom to try methods other than the conventional, to discover the truth of something that bothered him until his dying day, including, at last, freeing his mind from the constructs of his religion to believe that he is