African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [207]
In Britain, if a review or critical piece gives off that unmistakable odour of hate, of envy, it is easy to throw it aside and reach for something more intelligent. Not, however, in Zimbabwe, for there is no alternative.
I was invited to a meeting of Zimbabwean writers. There were more Party officials and Party watchdogs than writers. The ‘heavies’–never was there a more appropriate word–large and ponderous men in their three-piece suits, looked a different species from the writers. They were. They are. It was painful to watch serious writers patiently and with dignity suffering such thrusts as ‘I see you believe in the ivory tower conception of literature, comrade’–from a young woman activist quivering with pleasure at her political sophistication and know-how–darting looks at us all to invite admiration. All this is so stupid, you think, No, it simply cannot still be going on, but it is going on and good and serious writers are being hurt by it…by this revenge of the second-rate, always finding new ways–particularly political ways–for the operations of Envy. In 1989 the pronouncement went like this: ‘Any writer or novel or poem that gets attention or a review from outside Zimbabwe is by definition petit-bourgeois and betrays the needs of the black people–the writer is a sell-out.’ Seldom are we able to observe Envy so perfectly displayed, a glittering and poisonous circle of hate, excluding everything but itself, ascribing merit only to itself. This particular formula makes sure that any writer in Zimbabwe, past or future, attracting serious attention, is automatically discredited. (This formula is used in Nigeria, for any writer whose novels are taken seriously outside Nigeria: he, she, is a sell-out.)
In Zimbabwe writers tend to take to drink, or die young, or give up writing altogether. I would too.
Here are some of the Zimbabwe writers, some of the books I have admired.
Charles Mungoshi
Waiting for the Rain
The Setting Sun and the Rolling World
Coming of the Dry Season
Tsitsi Dangarembga
Nervous Conditions
Shimmer Chinodya
Dew in the Morning
Harvest of Thorns (This is the novel, about the Bush War, which was disapproved of.)
S. Nyamfukudza
The Non-Believer’s Journey
Musaemura Zimunya
Country Dawns and City Lights
William Saidi
The Old Bricks
Tim McLoughlan
Karima
Chenjerai Hove
Up in Arms
Bones
TIME TO GO HOME, FROM HOME
I decided to make a quick trip to my myth country, perhaps to make sure it was still there, and even visit the dark stuffy bungalow on that hill always steeped in moonlight, starlight, sunlight, and aired by the hundred winds of earth and sky. ‘Hello!’ I might say to those little kids peering out through dirty glass. ‘Hi! How are you doing? Tell me, what is your heart’s desire?’
But at the turn-off up to the hill where once there was the acacia grove on one side and the mombie kraal on the other, is now a large notice, ‘Trespassers will be Prosecuted’.
Quite right too.
The Scriptwriters certainly know their job.
Before I left Zimbabwe, not far from Harare, just after sundown, I glimpsed the past–all our pasts–in a light-stepping youth returning from a range of low hills, his eyes alert for the ghosts of vanished game. On his back was a spear, in his hand was a catapult, and he was accompanied by three lean hunting dogs.
THE YEAR OF MIRACLES, 1990
A young woman is on a plane coming from the eastern Mediterranean, and is joined by a man who says, ‘Tell me what’s been happening in the world. I’ve been in the Himalayas for months, and I’ve not seen a newspaper nor heard the news. Thank God.’
‘Well now, let me see,’ says she. ‘The Soviet Union has given up communism, the Soviet colonies have given up the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall is down and Germany