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This article examines the representation of postcolonial marginalisation and adaptive/reactive models of masculinity in NoViolet Bulawayo's novel, We Need New Names. It focuses on the representations of masculinities in the text and their ramifications and entanglements at the global, regional and local levels. The analysis is mediated via a triangulation of the concepts of hegemonic masculinity, masculine (over)compensation and masculine hybridisation. It establishes that a culture of both hegemony and domination mediates and permeates masculine relations resulting in the enactment of reactive and adaptive responses in the form of both masculine (over)compensation and masculine hybridisation. These responses are mainly enacted by those subaltern masculinities who are at the receiving end of domination and hegemony. Additionally, these responses favour the enhancement of male domination and/or patriarchy as opposed to gender equality. They also do not favour the promotion of a culture of tolerance, democracy and/or human rights discourses that are central to the realities of much of the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented in which the author considers the ways that African writing and German intellectual cultures have been intertwined to invite a re-examination of affiliations that illuminate co-creating literary clusters to enrich both fields. Topics covered include the German ties of Zimbabwe's Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of the novel "Nervous Conditions," works of Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah and the relationship between German and African literatures.

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]

An interview with Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, a Zimbabwean author who wrote the novel "House of Stone," is presented, on topics including her experience of diverse literary influences; her kinship with writers deemed anti-nationalist; and her views on Grace Mugabe, wife of former President Robert Mugabe.

During Zimbabwe's past decade, which has been characterised by the state's (re)configuration of black land ownership as the ultimate sign of liberation, creative literature has emerged as a fruitful site on which to encounter various discourses, versions, and subversions of the meaning of land. While several authors have explored the land and its significance to contemporary political and economic urgencies in terms of the state's nativist narrative, the turn of the century saw the emergence of Zimbabwean writers who sought to chart alternative imaginings of land and its political, economic, and spiritual significance to the ordinary citizen. This article contends that the short stories in Lawrence Hoba's collection The Trek and Other Stories epitomises this strand of narrative aesthetic in their critical engagement with the state's narrative of land. It explores the short stories' treatment of the land question, particularly their depiction of the ironic ambivalence of black beneficiaries of the government's land resettlement programme. Finally, the article discusses Hoba's symbolic characterisation and manipulation of the sincerity and clear-sightedness of the child narrator in constructions of ambiguity in the politics of land and decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that one of the challenges white Zimbabwean writers have to deal with in their narratives is a troubled colonial past. In Peter Godwin'sMukiwa, A White Boy in Africa, there is a plain acknowledgement that Rhodesia had problems of legitimacy, which made the treatment of blacks before and during the war unjustified. Godwin's rendition of the past is therefore informed by this recognition, compelling the author to employ narrative strategies which make it possible for him to embrace certain aspects of the past while simultaneously distancing himself from others. This analysis of Godwin'sMukiwashows how a re-imagined childhood consciousness enables an understanding of the Rhodesian past. Through this narrative strategy, Godwin is supposedly faithful in rendering the past, including its imperfections. Furthermore, the Rhodesian past is depicted as a baneful entity that estranges whites from the Zimbabwean present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article approaches the ongoing cultic phenomenon around the Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera from the viewpoint of cultic remembrance. The diverse text corpus concerned with the writer is marked by nuances of regret and loss. These affects reveal a sense of guilt that envelops the author's memory, as well as a willingness to compensate the past wrongdoings to which Marechera is seen to become subjected. The sadness around Marechera's memory seems to spring from the conception that Marechera was misunderstood during his lifetime. Currently, however, he is seen to have been ahead of his time, a postcolonial writer avant la lettre, and a talent wasted in a hostile environment. What adds to Marechera's "tragedy" is that he is interpreted to have predicted the Zimbabwe crisis. Today, Marechera is seen to haunt the world of the living in a ghostly manner, which indicates a melancholic unwillingness to accept the writer's loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera is one of the most important writers to emerge from the African continent over the last two decades. Although she has received widespread critical acclaim as well as academic scrutiny, analyses of her work have mostly focused on her novels. This article attempts to redress this scholarly imbalance by offering a close textual analysis of Why Don't You Carve Other Animals? through a critical lens of postcolonial and feminist theory. In these stories Vera articulates the internal thoughts of her characters in order to explore the way that oppressed people negotiate the fact of their oppression. It is particularly the female characters' reflections that reveal the complexity of the position occupied by colonised women and the sophistication of their attempts to address the layered marginalisation to which they are subjected. Vera shows that, for them, an unproblematic participation in the nationalist movement for liberating Zimbabwe from colonial oppression is simply not an option. The article explores the specifically gendered expectations and obstacles that shape the female characters' struggles in the Zimbabwean context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) is the object of a cult phenomenon: his figure represents a relevant site of sense-making and his earlier unfavorable African criticism is challenged. Marechera's fiction has a strong autobiographical dimension that results in a metadiscourse on the meanings of authorship, where the notion of misunderstanding represents a central trope. This essay aims not only at drawing an overview of Marechera's representations of authorship, but also at suggesting that Marechera was actively involved in the construction of his authorial image, and that the notion of misunderstanding captures the changes that have taken place in the contexts of his critical reception. Further, the essay addresses Marechera's positioning in relation to the notion of commitment and argues that the relevance of the Marecheran dissident writer-figure stems from the fact that it represents a position from which repressive truths of the postcolonial nation-state can be contested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the early writings of Gahadzikwa Albert (G.A.) Chaza, a police officer who served in the British South Africa Police (BSAP) force in Southern Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe, from 1936 to 1957. It comments on his writings in the BSAP publication "Mapolisa," which often stressed education, professional development, and progress. The author analyzes Chaza as a moderate and a loyalist, contrasting his early writings with his book "Bhurakuwacha: The Story of a Black Policeman in Colonial Southern Rhodesia."

The article discusses Zimbabwean author Memory Chirere and the portrayal of socially marginalized black children in postcolonial Zimbabwe in his fiction. The critique of nationalism and of the assumption that liberation from white rule brought improved social conditions is discussed in the short stories "Plastics and Cardboard," "Beautiful Children," and "An Old Man," from the anthology "No More Plastic Balls and Other Stories."

The article discusses Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera, who died of AIDS in 2005, and examines her fiction for any references to the disease. Her final, unfinished novel, "Obedience," is examined and found to concern the "diseased" politics of Zimbabwe. Two of her short stories, "Sorting It Out" and "In Africa There Is a Kind of Spider," are also discussed.

The article presents an interview with the Zimbabwean novelist and playwright Tsitsi Dangarembga. Questions include commentary on her novel "The Book of Not," her use of first person narration and its psychological effects, along with her political and idealistic perspectives that show through her work.

The article discusses various articles in this issue pertaining to Zimbabwean novelist Yvonne Vera.

Discusses the correlation between the views of Zimbabwean women writers Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga on the issue of same-sex sexuality. Approach of Vera to the literary depiction of body parts belonging to lovers; Her emphasis on the defiance of prohibition; Extension of girlhood friendship based on a fundamental sameness or the mutual recognition of self-in-other of cousinhood in the works of Dangarembga.

Discusses the inclinations and representations of homosexuality in the works of author Dambudzo Marechera and other Zimbabwean literature. Manifestations of the gay-friendliness of Marechera; Background of the anti-gay movement in Zimbabwe in 1995; Examples of Zimbabwean authors whose works address the issue of homosexuality.

Interviews Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera. English-language novels produced; Awards received; Work on the novel "Obedience"; Literary influences; Thoughts about the writings of other Zimbabwean authors such as Chenjerai Hove; Comments regarding the political violence in Zimbabwe.

This paper gives a brief account of Zimbabwean literature written in isiNdebele. It tries to cover the major themes that have been written about since the publication of the first isiNdebele novel in 19S6 to the last one in 2001, The paper gives the major concerns of the writers and distinguishes the writers who are able to critique both the social and political issues. It also identifies the colonial and post-colonial writers who merely mimic what the state wants. It concludes by stressing that literary art should help societies to understand the complexities of life and that isiNdebele literature has not yet achieved that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the literary works and styles of Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera. Titles of books written and awards received; Emphasis on colonialism and abuses in gender politics; Summary of the book 'Butterfly Burning'.