Heroes or Victims?

Abstract

The chapter provides an exegesis of revisionist and non-celebratory war novels that thematise Zimbabwe’s liberation war fought in the 1970s. The primary objective of this undertaking is to demonstrate the way in which written literature is inalienably coextensive with the debates on liberation war history in the polity. This firmly locates literature as an indispensable franchise in national processes. The import of this chapter resides in the understanding that Zimbabwe’s liberation war has attracted copious interest from various scholars. In that regard, literary works also become part of the growing body of knowledge on liberation war history. The selected narratives break out of the cocoon of historical fixity and petrifaction, thereby problematising history through the way they render nuanced interpretations. Marshalling corroborative evidence from Alexander Kanengoni’s Echoing Silences and Charles Samupindi’s Pawns, the chapter demonstrates that the liberation war was/is a complex historical process that cannot merely be seen in terms of heroes, military contacts and triumphs.