Writing and reading Zimbabwe in the global literary market: A case of four novelists

Abstract

ABSTRACT Utilizing and extending Kwasi Wiredu’s concept of conceptual decolonization and self-exorcism, this article makes observations about the ideological underpinnings and literary trajectory of post-2000 Zimbabwean fiction in English through readings of four novels: Harare North by Brian Chikwava, We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah, and The Maestro, The Magistrate and The Mathematician by Tendai Huchu. Chikwava, Bulawayo, Gappah, and Huchu self-consciously depict Zimbabwe in stereotypical terms to secure publishing contracts and to ensure the international marketability of their fiction. At the same time, they show that they are conceptually decolonized by employing insurrectionary tactics of self-exorcism which register their resistance to banal profit-driven portrayals of Zimbabwe. Thus, the article explores the paradoxical situation or what Mohammad Shabangu has called the “double bind” of how these writers employ and deploy stereotypes to ensure success in the global literary market while, at the same time, undermining them.