The contemporary African writer and the burden of history

Andrew Chatora, author of the novel Diaspora Dreams, has departed from his usual forte, fiction, to write a collection of essays and reflections entitled, Unstoppable March of the Human Condition: Essays on Politics and Literature. It is a nonfiction essay collection.

This is a complete volume made up of essays from Chatora’s separate career as a thinker and literary and arts critic. In addition, there are book reviews on select Zimbabwean writers (as homage to them) and a few select reviews on TV shows with a bearing on the Black experience. Has Chatora put aside fiction?

Ngugi wa Thiongo from his preface to his book of essays, “In a novel, the writer is totally immersed in a world of imagination… At his most intense and creative, the writer is transfigured, he is possessed…In the essay, the writer can be more direct, didactic, polemical, or can merely state his beliefs and faith…to define his beliefs, attitudes and outlook in the more argumentative for of the essay.”

In his concluding remarks to his only book of essays, Shebeen Tales, Chenjerai Hove says about briefly putting away fiction for the essays, “…the essays gave me a time for a further dialogue with myself. As a writer, (of fiction) sometimes there is a temptation to engage in dialogue with the characters I create. That is at the expense of dialogue with myself… the essays were at the centre, refreshing my mind, drawing my vision from the distant (fiction) to the nearby, the immediate which I found has more to teach us…”

A fiercely personal, politically charged masterpiece. Chatora strips away fiction to interrogate the raw, unfiltered realities of exile, identity, and the Black experience.

Turning to non-fiction as a break, as Chatora has done, clearly allows writers to reclaim their own narratives from outsider perspectives and to document complex, fast-changing realities, and address urgent socio-political issues. 

Chatora’s fiction about the Zimbabwean Diaspora has placed him within a rich tradition. Ever since Dambudzo Marechera of The House of Hunger’s  in 1978, there has been a quiet but sustained outpouring of narratives about leaving the homeland (Zimbabwe) because of crisis. 

Chatora’s debut novel of 2021, Diaspora Dreams is about Kundai Mafirakureva who is following up on his teacher wife, Kay in England. His wife’s pregnancy is now very advanced and Kundai has come to be with the beautiful Kay in her time of need, something far away from Chikwava’s single minded man in Harare North.  From the moment Kundai from  N133A Dangamvura- Mutare, manages to secure a visa at Heathrow, a whirlwind takes over. Husband and wife are on new turf. This is the UK. Their constant power struggles over which relatives should receive money from the UK and who should not, begin in earnest. Traditional African filial ties are on trial.

Who needs a writer? There is more to writing than dollars and cents

In one of these essays, Chatora engages the subject of the interplay between home and exile while examining the contributions of exiled writers and artists like  Chenjerai Hove (Zimbabwe), Ngugi wa Thiongo (Kenya0, and Sony Labou Tansi (Congo), musician such as Dorthy Masuka (Zimbabwe), Hugh Masekela (South Africa) and Thomas Mapfumo (Zimbabwe). In the end he faces the ultimate question: for all his fights, how does the artist define home?

These essays dwell on Chatora’s daily life as a writer and Black Zimbabwean English Teacher in England. These no holds barred essays are deeply personal and politically charged. There is an examination of structural oppression and personal resilience as it plays out in the life of a writer, from Harare to London. Chatora delves into internalized racism, inadequacies and trauma, but also gestures toward the possibilities of healing through writing, art, and personal agency. 

In one essay Chatora grapples with the storm in which he got caught up in as a result of his hard hitting book, Diaspora Dreams. In that tempest, he was forced to ask himself, who am I in the big broad forest called world literature? He wonders even where he ought to locate himself now that he is an inheritor of a proud tradition of black writers like Chinua Achebe, James Baldwin, Charles Mungoshi, Stanlake Samkange and Yvonne Vera. He notices that ambition opens a writer to a line of fire. As a writer who lives far away from home, Zimbabwe, does he write purely for Western consumption, to ingratiate himself with his white colleagues? Living in post Brexit Britain has only heightened Chatora’s plight as a non white writer working in England in an increasingly xenophobic environment.

Chinua Achebe. Photo: Cliff/Flickr/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)/No changes made

His emotional memories of the Department of English at the University of Zimbabwe, is a climax to this collection. In the 1990’s, the department was at the forefront of producing literary and arts connoisseurs as it was fronted by the likes of Rino Zhuwarara, Musaemura Zimunya, Thompson Tsodzo, Kimani Gecau, Tawana Khupe and others. The 1990’s and the decade before them was a rich decade for that department as it spawned from one corridor the likes of firebrand arts and media personalities like Robert Muponde, Alice Kwaramba, Albert Nyathi, Bevelyn Dube, Susan Makore, Dudziro Nhengu, Naome Ziyambe, Ruby Magosvongwe, Winston Mano, Nhamo Mhiripiri, Ignatius Mabasa, Memory Chirere and others.  

In yet another essay, Chatora examines the role that writers of the generation before his, in Zimbabwe and al Africa, have accomplished in poking the dangerous bears like colonial legacy, post independence authoritarianism, economic decline and human rights issues. They have often found themselves in prison or exile or subsequently both. Does the writer have to stand alone or he has to combine forces with the so called “Democratic forces”? Is this role adequate at all, Chatora ponders. And, looking back at all our key writers, what exactly do we think they have achieved, Chatora asks and immediately attempt to answer. He operates within the call-and-answer tradition of African music.

In this book there is even a guest appearance by young Onai Mushava, a firebrand Zimbabwean  ghetto centric poet and essayist. In all these essays, the legitimate role of the contemporary writer is uppermost. These essays offer a unique reading experience, appreciating great writers like Charles Mungoshi, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Yvonne Vera, Ayi kwei Armah and many other luminaries who have influenced the author’s own writing journey and consciousness over the years.

Charles Mungoshi. Photo Credit: Jesesi Mungoshi via Facebook official page.

Wide-ranging in scope, the essays span literature, history, politics, exile, language, and identity. Chatora writes about writers he admires (Charles Mungoshi, Ngugi wa Thiongo, James Baldwin, Chenjerai Hove, Yvonne Vera), and reflects on the condition of exile and the function of literature. Celebrated literary critic, writer and poet Onai Mushava makes insightful guest contributions to the collection.

Using an anecdotal style which is equally engaging, this book is a powerful contribution to African literature which will be of immense value to the Zimbabwe literary landscape. The book is not bogged down by adhering to the rigid norms of what entails an essay and the overriding concern is clearly giving the reader easy accessibility to the writer’s  literary journey, and personal convictions.  This reminds me of what Chinua Achebe says way back in Hopes and Impediments in 1989: “Experience is what we are able and are prepared to do with what happens to us.”

About the Author 

Andrew Chatora is an award-winning Zimbabwean-born novelist, essayist and English teacher based in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Unstoppable March of the Human Condition, among several works of fiction and nonfiction, including the award-nominated novella Diaspora Dreams. He is the founder of Friesian Publishing, an independent British publishing house championing distinctive literary voices and global narratives. Drawing on his experience as a Zimbabwean-born writer living in Britain, his work examines politics, literature, identity, education, exile and the enduring legacies of colonialism through a distinctly humanist lens.

This review was first published in The Herald (Zimbabwe) and is reproduced with acknowledgment to the original publication.

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