Title: Kusara Kunze Huona
Author: Colette Choto Mutangadura
Publisher: Zimbabwe women Writers, 2013
pp105, isbn: 978-0-7974-5679-2 Colette Mutangadura's latest Shona novel, Kusara Kunze Huona is to date one of the very few fictional narratives in the Shona language to dwell extensively on what has come to be known as Zimbabwe’s decade of crisis. This is a period around 1998 to 2008. Whichever way it is considered, this Zimbabwean crisis is characterised by political strife, serious economic meltdown, an acute brain drain and the general collapse of public amenities that the country suffered.
An urban based widow
and grandmother, vaHazvinei is caught up in this serious crisis. All her sons
and their wives and all her daughters and their husbands fall victim, one after
the other, to the Aids pandemic, leaving her with their numerous children in the tiny two rooms of her four roomed old
house in Joburg lines, Mbare Harare. There are some lodgers in the other two rooms and in this crisis, they pay her once in a long-long while.
Kusara Kunze Huona, a
Shona saying precisely means that only those who survive live to face the
vagaries of the day. This is exactly what happens to vaHazvinei. At a time when
even the able bodied have nowhere to turn, the old lady swallows her lifelong
pride and goes out to beg at Mbare Musika, with some of her grand children in tow.
Then one day she comes
back home to find her fourteen year old grandson in the process of raping her
seven year old granddaughter! The boy is from vaHazvinei's late daughter and the girl is from her late son's side. Will vaHazvinei report the poor boy to
the police? Will vaHazvinei tell her injured granddaughter to keep quiet about
it all? Will the girl’s school teacher keep quiet when she learns about this?
The marauding boy
storms out returning only in the middle of the night, then going away for good
to join the growing gangs of criminals of impoverished Harare. Soon he is into pickpocketting, carjacking, prostitution, drug abuse and the other numerous vices.
Meanwhile, the crisis
rages on and there is Operation Murambatsvina, the political violence, the fast track land reform and the
curious stories about the raping of men by women and vaHazvinei is caught in between. Will she survive with
half a dozen orphans in Mbare? And… from nowhere, a friend of her late daughter
bumps into the old lady.
Mutangadura is a traditional writer in that when you read
her text, it feels like you are listening to a friend sitting on the other side
of the hearth, telling a story. Her Shona language rings with the clear clarity
associated with Shona griots. The novel begins abruptly with: VaHazvinei
vakamuka ndokusaidzira magumbeze kumakumbo. Chimba chavo chekuMajubheki
chakanga chasakara zvaisemesa. Vakagwabvura musoro wavo zvine simba vachiedza
kunyaradza kuvava nokuswinya kwawainge woita. Mupumbuchena uyu akakwenya
zvokuti dai raiva ganda rechidiki kana ropa ringadai rakaerera, asi nokuda
kwokusharuka ganda ravo rakanga ratindivarara uyewo rasvava zvokuti ropa
rakange rave shoma. (Old Hazvinei woke up with a start and pushed the blankets
down to her feet. Her blasted house in Joburg lines was now old and filthy. She
scratched her head vigorously, trying to silence some irritation. The old
fellow scratched so hard that had it been young skin, blood could have oozed. Now
her skin was old and wrinkled, betraying the little blood underneath.)
Mutangadura can be very dramatic, in a traditional Shona
way: Mbuya vakabuda panze kuti vaende
kuchimbuzi. Vakatambirwa netsvina isina akamboona. Ndove yevanhu asi kunge
danga renguruve, iro zimweya rinounza nhunzi dzorufu kase. Kwakange kusina
mvura musiyo. Chembere yakaombera maoko, “Zvino ndizvo zvinonzi Harare
izvi?...” (Grandma went out intending to go to the toilet. She was met with
lots of human dung. Human dung that looked like pig dung and the smell that
brings death everywhere. There was no tape water on that day. The old lady
clapped her hands in exasperation and cried, “So this is what Harare has
become?...”
However,
the old woman’s thoughts as she watches a country in transition remain an upward
quest. She is constantly looking for anything useful in this strife; a whisper, a pat on the back, some pumpkins, news about those in the Diaspora, dreams about a piece of land of her own, the smell of perfume that reminds her of any of her long gone children, awkward political slogans...She is
always listening and wondering which side is right or wrong. Which side will
triumph…when, why and how? Her mind is an encyclopaedia.
Published
in several anthologies mostly by Zimbabwe Women Writers, Collette Choto
Mutangadura was born on 19 March 1945 in Hwedza and has a lot of work
accredited to her name. Mutangadura’s first novel Rinonyenga Rinhwarara – ‘A
beggar humbles himself’, was published in 1983 by Mambo Press in association with
the Literature Bureau is a love story. In 2007, she compiled traditional
recipes by women from around Goromonzi area about 50 km east of Harare,
Zimbabwe. It is called ‘Kubika
Machikichori' Shona for preparing delicious meals.
Her second novel, Rutendo: The Chief’s Granddaughter (2009) is about Rutendo, the most promising daughter of in an African village who comes home on holiday from a white man’s college to find her grandfather, the chief’s homestead guarded by white soldiers. It is during the bitter war of liberation in Rhodesia. Suddenly Rutendo's romance with the liberation movement in the village seems compromised as her heart wonders off into a white soldiers’ tent. She falls in love with the white soldier, Barry!
Her second novel, Rutendo: The Chief’s Granddaughter (2009) is about Rutendo, the most promising daughter of in an African village who comes home on holiday from a white man’s college to find her grandfather, the chief’s homestead guarded by white soldiers. It is during the bitter war of liberation in Rhodesia. Suddenly Rutendo's romance with the liberation movement in the village seems compromised as her heart wonders off into a white soldiers’ tent. She falls in love with the white soldier, Barry!
The
author is one of the founders of Zimbabwe Women Writers (ZWW). Formed in 1990,
(ZWW) is an arts and culture trust concerned particularly with the promotion
of women’s literature in Zimbabwe.
Kusara Kunze Huona is particularly compelling and a must
reader for those who want an insider’s insights into Zimbabwe’s so called
decade of crisis.
