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This article explores the paradox of repression, dissent and censorship in Zimbabwe. It interrogates how selected literary artists in Zimbabwe have negotiated repression and censorship via choices of genre, codes, themes and publishing strategy. Given the internet-enabled diversification of publishing platforms, it is argued that alternative literary forms have emerged on social media, and, by refusing to be overtly political, some of the literature constitutes a new aesthetics that dissents without appearing to do so and compels us to rethink political action. The article demonstrates how state censorship appears to be contingent upon genre choices made by artists, potential size of audience, and fear that the supposed political harmony that the regime presides over is under threat. It concludes that cyber platforms have overturned traditional conceptions of literary genres and complicated the ability of the state to censor literary production. Ironically though, cyber platforms have also morphed into sites of repression. It is further concluded that censorship has often mobilised outrage in Zimbabwe's cyber citizens, thus paradoxically creating symbolic resistance and infinite opportunities for discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the motifs of genocide and violence in Zimbabwean literature. For more articulation of ideas, it intersects both preoccupations of genocide and gender violence in the Zimbabwean ideological purview, particularly in selected poetry. The paper probes into disarm sensitivity the domain of genocide and violence as universal phenomena and underscores various levels of vitriolic and diatribe people sometimes face in their interactions in a society that is polarized by racial and ethnic violence. It valorizes genocide and sectarian violence as bodily configuration of destruction on the mental, economic, social and political psyche of the people in time and space. Contextualising different perspectives from the World war I to the World war II, the holocaust, the experiences of the peoples of Afghanistan, Congo, Algeria, together with the Nigeria's Boko Haram insurgency and the Fulani Herdsmen's usurpation of lands are some examples of violence which directly or indirectly facilitate genocide. Similarly, the genocide experience of Namibia and the destruction of the Zulu kingdom of South Africa have all contributed to diverse application of genocide phenomenon which lends axiomatic credence to the loss of sense of belongings; the loss of lives and social abuse; physical and mental destruction; economic polarization and inhuman dispositions frequently experienced by people of diverse races. The imposition of colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism at divergent epochs have consequently crippled people and made them incapacitated to meet the immediate yearnings of their dynamic societies. The painful experience of genocide in Burundi and Rwanda has degenerated into hate and perjury. However, based on all those reflections on genocide, this paper specifically examines genocide and violence within the framework of Zimbabwean landscape and poetry in order to demonstrate that 'genocide has largely been visualized as a crime under international and national laws and has been criticized in all ramifications'. This paper is a response to how Zimbabwean people experience different categorizations of genocide and copious representations of these phenomena in poetry. It x-rays the human loss of lives, innate pogrom and psychological destructions ostensibly visualized by the people at different times before and after the independence of 1980. The paper showcases how Zimbabweans have not enjoyed the dividends of democracy, but rather experienced dejection in their lands leading to rejection and forceful migration to different countries. All poetry citations are to the collection of poetry entitled: (And Now the Poets Speak). This paper applies the genocide theory of 'final solution'- a psychological tenet which was propounded by Sabby Sagall and enhanced by Susan Zyl to explain the trajectory of genocide and how this brings the framework of violence to an end in Zimbabwe and in Africa at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Play language practices are common around the globe and have been described for several parts of the world. While some contributions on play language focus on the structure, manipulative strategies, and rules, this paper ties in with approaches that seek to view play language practices in their respective sociolinguistic contexts (e.g. Sherzer 2002; Storch 2011). Chibende, the play language practice under study in this paper, is analyzed in its Zimbabwean context. By looking at Zimbabwean examples and by broadening the perspective on these creative linguistic phenomena, it becomes evident that play languages are not performed in isolation but are deeply entangled with other language practices, such as youth language, as part of complex repertoires and social practices as well as acts of identity. By focusing on creativity and also taking the aspect of fun into account, the agency of the speakers becomes a central feature which is also reflected by the metalinguistic knowledge of the practitioners of Zimbabwean play language. In this regard, the discussion in this paper centers on the speakers' ideologies of play language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most striking phenomena of Zimbabwean literature since the 1990s has been the boom in white memoirs. Often written from abroad, these texts respond to the hostile political climate of the land reforms by insisting upon their authors' right to speak as national subjects. This article studies four memoirs by the two most famous exponents of the genre, Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. It argues that their texts negotiate a contested sense of belonging, challenged by their own doubts and expatriate position as well as by government exclusion. Outweighing such concerns, however, are the authors' continued family connections to the continent they have left behind. Their parents and siblings are used to insist upon the right of Fuller and Godwin, and with them whites more generally, to call Africa home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spirit possession is a central trope in Zimbabwean literature, not only in English, but also in indigenous languages. This article looks at the avenging spirit as it is manifested in Zimbabwean literature in English from the colonial days to the present, and uses postcolonial theory and Lewis's social deprivation theory in the exploration. It shows how this trope, under colonialism, is used to represent contesting power discourses that seek a stranglehold on the people. It goes on to show how the same trope is used to recover suppressed discourses, voices and narratives, and also becomes a metaphor for fissures in Zimbabwean society in the aftermath of the war of liberation and the unfulfilled promises of the same. Finally, it explores the avenging spirit as a traditional belief system that is central in the psyche of many of the Zimbabwean people and which society has to contend with in the contemporary set up. The article goes on to argue however, that belief in the ngozi represents traditional knowledge systems that can be used to deal with African problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explore the gendering of race, colonialism and anti colonial nationalism in selected novels from the Zimbabwean literary canon with the view of showing how this gendering affected different facets of colonial life and, by implication, post independence life. It relies on the Gramscian concept of hegemony in terms of how it refers to gender, particularly masculinities. The selected texts, A Son of the Soil by Wilson Katiyo, The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing and Bones by Chenjerai Hove, cover the colonial period from the moment of contact to the early post independence period. The article links the gendered nature of colonialism to the gendered aspects of anti colonial nationalism and shows how the two existed in an oppositional yet ambivalent relationship. This is also manifest in the schizophrenia of the post independence state in modeling itself after its predecessor, its anti colonial rhetoric notwithstanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]