MPR’s Mike Maus interviews Zimbabwean novelist Shimmer Chinodya and others talk about writing coming out of war and Zimbabwe independence.

Includes reading by unknown poet, titled “Tanya,” set in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Shimmer Chinodya is author of the book “Harvest of Thorns.”

Transcript:

(00:00:00) The morning slides falls upon the Autumn trees from blank Skies marking and Oak turning orange one brown another frostbitten and a ghostly Whitechapel ascending from the bear brown Woods. My tropical childhood rushes back to me out of the two breeze. It's barefooted step and unwilling scoop of the cold sand the Earth each breath smoking through the rattling teeth and jaws of supreme. My limbs are numb as mother screams. It's time for the cattle. You lazy boy move faster. You're already late waking up as a teeth. Appleton Appleton opens pages of sunshine Indian summer and freak snowfall with the Casual he's of a goddess Mistress of pleasant surprises, but my African students wonder what growing Sluggers May lurk behind the life is trees tinted automobiles ready smiles and greetings. I do remember Tanya Tanya of the gliding Spirit welcoming me to Wisconsin with a cow black and white as if to say this way. God made milk. And then as always the often asks, how lasting is a white smile. I did not wish to imperil innocence with Wicked suspicion which daughter being always which daughter but I ran into the ivory Temple to hear God's command in his own voice saying behold did not Christ offer himself to save sinless children from the sins of their forefathers. Why then son of him? Do you have no faith? I ran through the rain my ears pelting until arriving at the Gate of the Whitechapel. I was stopped by a Budweiser Festival. Thereupon the steps was a crying guitar and I laughing fiddle and there's couples danced and who peed we guzzled beer through the deluge. Tanya Tanya, what was the state of of letters in Zimbabwe in 1980 when Independence took place? A lot of things had begun to happen by 1980 in Zimbabwe literary circles. First you had the birth of an indigenous literature in two main languages shown on the Bella going back to 1956 or thereabouts over those between 1956 and 1980. There were several novels coming out of what was called the literature Bureau. These were novels largely dealing with Very mundane things that didn't challenge the existing system like Johnny comes to town or something like that from the rural areas now from the country. So you had that development for a start you also we're beginning to have by 1980 writers expressing themselves in English. And the way about three good novels in English by 1980 and a collection of poetry by zimbabweans. Of course one has to say that Zimbabwe. Was Rhodesia and Rhodesia did have to racial groups because of the ratio Constitution and relational nature of that Society white did have their own literature, but it tended to be the teacher that was heavily dependent upon more or less did forms and dead ideas of the Victorian era of the Empire Era tended to be European literature European. Yes, even the way they looked at the bush around Them it was the thought they were still far away in London, you know, there was no meaningful interaction with the words that they had come to call their own which was an African world. Now what happened after 1980?
(00:04:37) Well, I think defective Independence was a great benefit to the literary scene in two ways first. I remember for instance writing my novel my first novel during the morning finishing in by 1977 and then nothing was done about it until after Independence is the Publishers were sitting on it and waiting. So you find in 1980 people had been right. And writing and writing and then suddenly 1980 the publishing houses wherein and dated, you know flooded with all this material that people have been doing so Independence was took the lid off. Yeah, it's opened the doors but also in terms of creativity in terms of the themes and they content that people were going to look at I think Independence also brought a new era in that people were going to write about the war people going to write about the the politics which they Not do during the time of the Rhodesia. Let's see a bit of which most of us talking about.
(00:05:41) Is it more difficult to right now than it was right after Independence or is it or is it more open now than it was right after Independence. And if I understand you correctly there was this burst after
(00:06:00) Independence the go back to 1980. I think we went through this. This euphoric phase where I think I'm up to the rope and people writing a particular kind of way to do and almost everybody. I mean I couldn't resist. I don't think any writer could resist being swept along that favor that enthusiasm. This was a national spirit and writers almost invariably fail for that, you know celebrating the struggle celebrating the war that we'd gone through and looking LG the future, so we went through that phase in certain number of books were produced some of them good some of them Dreadful but I think in the last 10 12 years has been remarkable my maturity, you know, it sort of came about end and people and I was able to look back more critically and more objectively and in the reading public ones that in the writers need to do that with now said looking back. At the war and saying what really happened what really what really happened why why wave things going wrong
(00:07:13) now this true both infection and in poetry. Smallest true because although poetry in English emerges. Much more strongly Than Fiction and earlier as well. It's themes whereas closely aligned to the history of the country as Shiva has suggested you had poetry that was it first at Lee excited about writing in English and you know soap poetry writing as a kind of game and then suddenly writer started to feel the anguish of writing about themselves their culture in a foreign language and then suddenly poet started to write about the colonial violence whether directly or indirectly so that in 1980 when Independence arrived the was is sort of almost really just Revival about the Zimbabwean African society. And as he says it was the most tempting thing on earth to celebrate that and not to celebrate would have been to ignore. The shocking reality that you could be so free. I mean, can you believe that even though for example, I was went out of the country and studied in England for a long time. I was still not free because I was a Rhodesian. England is a very free country, but I wasn't a free person you weren't a free person because I was at Rhodesian. My fate was tied to my country. Where I was not free. You know, and my people will also not free and I didn't know what it meant to be free. Having been born into a kind of bondage if you want where my movements would be restricted. I had to carry a pass. I would be could be questioned. I could be arrested without you know any question at all. I couldn't pursue a kind of profession that I was looking forward to because my whole future had been limited for me by virtue of having been born a black African Rhodesian and so the very fact of Independence brought about a religious sort of feeling of Celebration. I went through that phase.