Review of Shimmer Chinodya's Strife
Strife is a novel laden with, yes, strife! It is at once a family story, a national one and eventually a borderless one. The author, Shimmer Chinodya, through the Gwanangara family takes on the task of interpreting and explaining happening events first by revisiting the past to deal with the upturning, unresolved business. The spirits start talking through Kelvin Gwanangara:
‘I am Mhokoshi! I want my weapons back!’
‘I am Njiki!’ Kelvin snarls, in an old woman’s voice. ‘My spirit is roaming the forest.’ ‘I am Sabastin.’ Now a strange young man’s thin breaking voice. ‘I need rest.’
‘I am Zevezeve the porcupine. You shat and spat on me when I visited you.’
‘I am Edgar Tekere. I’m back from the war. I see blood everywhere.’
Dunge Gwanangara, after many years of living as a Christian is challenged to put aside Christianity and consult n’angas. He ends up making mistakes for he doesn’t really know how to, he’s been busy being a strict Christian. The unresolved issues only grow larger. More misfortune strikes members of his family. One of his sons becomes epileptic, another schizophrenic. Dunge’s wife—the moon huntress— hears voices. Eventually, it turns out that no one thing really works, and no one solution will come from Christianity or tradition, modernity or education, science or destiny. The past no longer holds together and science fails to offer a cure to the Gwanangara afflictions. Conflict heightens as one value weighs against another and the realization that choosing one path is no longer practical. The characters in the novel fumble about, grappling for the ‘way.’ In the words of the author, ‘Everything that can go wrong goes wrong…’ And what’s supposed to happen doesn’t happen.
The book has selfless characters who sacrifice themselves for others, and also selfish individuals who only want to depend on others, and even blame others for their misfortunes.
The most refreshing part of the novel is when the author exposes migrations and relations that link various people across Africa, rendering the current borders meaningless. The ordinary person is well integrated, it’s the elite who are confused and divided by national borders. The young, rural people have no ‘crossing’ problems, leaving Zimbabwe to go and work in Mozambique or Malawi, learn the languages there and speak them. An old woman is at ease to cross from Zambia and visit her relatives in Zimbabwe, (without papers) but the educated are lost in the legal requirements and the consequences of crossing borders without visas.
The Gwanangara family has relatives across borders and occasionally exchange visits. The sad aspect is that these visits are mostly triggered by moments of crisis; strange illnesses and death. Most of the characters are courageous and they strive to overcome the obstacles that try to pull them down.
Towards the end of the story there is a sense of ease, a mellowness softening the rough edges of strife. The Gwanangara family starts to bond, openly talking about themselves and each other without hiding behind masks. They bail each other out and hear each other out. Also, they discover the joy of involving themselves earnestly in other people’s lives. They attend the funerals, graduation parties and weddings with genuine concern and discover that some of their relatives are not as bad as they had seemed to be. ‘In fact, none of the Chivi people seem half as bad as we were made to think they were. Perhaps we should make a fresh start.’ There is a new understanding amongst relatives giving hope to open friendship and genuine love.
At the end of the narrative, Strife is not only portrayed as a family saga or a single community affair but an African one. Utilizing the drama form to conclude his story, Chinodya seems to suggest that almost every African no matter where the geographical divide must make choices as to what will work in the future and question the belief invested in science, bones or Bibles. There will be several schools of thought for influence and inspiration: education, medicine, destiny, tradition... But before arriving at a lasting solution, the past will keep calling, making coping in the present moment alone nothing but full of strife!
Weaver Press, Harare, 2006, pp 223
* Mildred K Barya is Writer-in-Residence at TrustAfrica (www.trustafrica.org)
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