Anthology displays sly tongue of the pen
Reviewed by Memory Chirere
This is a huge collection of effortless short stories in English ‘by writers born in Africa or of African parentage.’ Africa speaks here through a whole generation of its emerging writers. Among them are several Caine Prize winners and writers who have previously published literature that has begun to draw some serious attention in their respective countries.
Writers from Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe make very visibly outstanding clusters in this book that threatens to include at least a story from each of Africa’s sub regions.
From the Zimbabwean group Nhamo Mhiripiri and his wife, Joyce Tsitsi Mutiti confirm themselves as what people are beginning to call ‘Zimbabwe’s writing couple’ because this is not the first time they appear in the same anthology.
The writing of Joyce has a certain cadence that comes from her conversational style whereas Nhamo’s is a fighting story.
In ‘When Night Was Arrested’ Nhamo explores the continuously conflicting ways in which Zimbabwe’s land issue is viewed across the world.
Zimbbawean readers from the same country will realise that Ruzvidzo Mupfudza continues to be their answer to Isabel Allende when it comes to exploring the life in people beyond the naked eye.
Wonder Guchu’s ‘It Will Never Be Yesterday’ echoes his latest book of short stories, ‘My Children, My Home’ where he writes with the simplest clarity ever seen in Zimbabwean writing since Coming of The Dry Season.
Brian Chikwava’s story about strangers who become friends, who become shameless predators is a story, like all his stories elsewhere, that only a jazz musician can write.
He is always mischievously searching for the eternal sources of sorrow and joy, something that comes closest to ‘Marechera’s Mindblast’.
In Zimbabwe, it is interesting that every writer who has become prominent has had to publish at least a short story book. The Zimbabwean short story makes easy reading but it traps the reader through understatement and double meaning.
Some stories from East Africa open up the issue of genocide and banditry. ‘Land of my Bones’ by Mildred Barya is a shocking story.
There is something irresolvable about genocide.
The observer of the aftermaths can only be turned inside out and only a sober art, like music can provide an outlet.
Barya’s writing is deep and truthful. So is ‘Back home’ by Monica Arac de Nyeko. Monica’s writing balances up emotions that normally conflict like hate and love and joy and sorrow.
As her character travels across the war torn Ugandan countryside, you feel the real pulse of Africa. You read along and suffer joyfully.
The story of boarder jumpers, ‘The Legendary Old Crosser’ by Osita Obi, could be the most touching story in this collection.
You almost stop breathing until the end of the story when there is a well deserved birth in the end.
Sometimes Africa’s children pay so much in order to get out of Africa in search of fortunes abroad.
Africa’s children can be pathetic fellows, crawling out of Africa through mountain gaps, sometimes carrying heavy pregnancies that are overdue.
But Africa can be treacherous even when you have its blood coursing through your veins.
This is what Mercy learns in Kadija Sesay’s ‘Love Long Distance’ by the co-editor of this collection, Kadija Sesay.
Sometimes it is not easy to love an African man, let alone to try and marry him. Where there was love only nausea remains.
Finally Mercy turns her back on Africa the way her father before her does.
Although this is a huge and thought provoking collection of short stories, it might not be totally true, as the editors suggest, that these stories ‘break boundaries in style, content or language…’
In fact what is true is that Africa has always produced ‘soft’, laid back and liberated stories like these but they have always remained in the realm of the magazine and arts sections of newspapers.
One might be tempted to call these stories popular literature. For years, and maybe because of its history, Africa had preferred ‘hard stuff’, meaning stories that are overtly political.
These stories are very political in a sneaky way, providing very gradual growth of introspection on the part of the reader.
Dreams, Miracles & Jazz: New Adventures in African Writing ed by Helon Habila and Kadija Sesay, 2008, Northlands, Picador Africa ISBN: 978-1-77010-025-1
First published on artsinitiates.