KwaChirere reviews Fatima Kara’s debut novel

 

Title: The Train House on Lobengula Street,

Author: Fatima Kara

Publisher: Envelope Books: London, 2023

Isbn: 9 781915 023094

 

(A Book Review by Memory Chirere)

Fatima Kara’s novel, The Train House on Lobengula Street is a rare story about Indians coming to settle in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). It is a carefully crafted story about sojourning and transitioning.  You are stunned that such a mature piece of work is only a debut attempt.

This is also a family novel because the sojourner is still within a part of her family. She cannot necessarily renew herself totally or remain stagnant because there is always family to consider. If you run, they stop you. If you linger, they push you on.

Meanwhile the sojourner’s traditions and beliefs are put to an acid test at the same time by three entities: family, time and the new space. This is a novel about continuity and change. Water and fire are in the same mouth.

On the surface, this is the easy-going story about the Kassims; a traditional Indian Muslim family taking the economic opportunities that Southern Rhodesia offers to migrants from the east in the challenging 1950’s and 60’s. The author does well to weave a solid narrative that constantly persuades the reader to slow down and linger. Sometimes you stop to cross reference details. This is something you find in other compact novels such as Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing and Spiwe Mahachi’s Footprints in the Mists of Time; two novels also about the trials and tribulations of newcomers to Rhodesia.

This novel gradually opens up like a wild and magical onion. The more you read the more you are paid. It is a story in which the least expected is always waiting by the corner.

This is a detective novel of sorts too; working out from 1969 backwards to 1940, up until 1969 once more, in order to establish why and how Razaak grows to become unsympathetic to his wife. You find Razaak sending his daughters far away to Uganda to arranged marriages. He is so determined to scatter his family while hiding behind tradition.

The case of an emaciated Zora, running away from a failed marriage in Uganda, back to Bulawayo with her sympathetic mother, to be asked by her father to go back to Uganda, is quite startling. Zora’s sisters are also unhappy, and they feel like slaves sold down the river. This is a very sensitive story about a long-standing custom that has sustained generations. The author shows without preaching. 

The story spins in time, meticulously finding out how tradition and culture turn a once sweet man like Razaak into a scoundrel and a hater of his wife who is a woman who gives Razaak eight children without complaining. Razaak gradually becomes cold towards a woman whose life is spent being routinely pregnant; calling on the nurse and the elders to help with her deliveries.

What will a newly arrived and newly married young Gujarati woman in colonial Bulawayo of the 1960’s want from her people and the colonial government? That is complicated. Kulsum comes to Bulawayo just after marrying Razaak in India and they settle in the broad Kassim family, led by a laid-back patriarch called Abaa. 

Virtually a villager from Hunyana village in India, Kulsum is caught up in a struggle against both Indian Muslim traditions and the racist terrain of Southern Rhodesia. She is in a double bind. Once outside the bustle of the train station in Bulawayo on her first day, Kulsum is fascinated to see that there are no rickshawallahs here, no loud vegetable sellers, no children playing, no beggars, no goats and no cows too!

While she is still working out her new geographical location, Kulsum senses that Razaak is more inclined to forget her! As soon as Razaak sees his long-lost father, his wife becomes second fiddle. When father and son hug and exclaim at the station, it is left to the black servant, Jabulani, to smile at poor Kulsum and ask her to join the celebrating party in the car. The marriage and attachment between Razaak and Kulsum end as soon as Razaak meets his father! Even when they get home, Kulsum becomes an invisible woman, and her opportunistic mother-in-law quickly takes over, more or less like an irate prison warder.

When Kulsum meets her mother-in-law, Jee Ma, she does not even ask after Kulsum’s sisters nor offer condolences on the death of Kulsum’s mother. Jee Ma becomes Kulsum’s competitor with an upper hand. That Abaa says Kulsum cooks better than Jee Ma makes it worse! Soon Kulsum gives birth to a boy when Jee Ma has no son to boast about! You are given opportunity to see how some women treat fellow women in the race to please men.

Then one day Abaa fumbles with her daughter in law wanting intimacy. This horrifies Kulsum who cannot report. She wonders if it is because she struggles to secure her scarf, the laj. Jee Maa overworks Kulsum like a donkey even when she is going through many of her pregnancies. The malicious backbiting continues until Kulsum and Razaak move out of Abaa’s place in the middle of the night to find refuge amongst other Indians in the vicinity.

Meanwhile the nationalist movement is growing in Rhodesia and the Indians realize that they are only tolerated as a white man’s buffer against the black people. Fortunately, there are the politically conscious people such as Amar. There is the radical coloured woman, the nurse, who is dragging the Indian community to take their resistance. There is Lakshmi, the Hindu neighbor, who realizes that people had better quickly grow and transcend tradition.

Kulsum has to deal with her own in-built contradictions. She constantly feels that although her in laws ill-treat her, she has a right to their love. She fights hard to embrace those who reject her until the option is to move on. This is consistent with the question she is asked by Nurse: “So, tell me, which place did you like living in best; in Hunyana, your ancestral village, or Madagascar, where you sold fish, or here, where your husband sells spices?”

And Kulsum's newly minted answer is: “This place.”

Razaak appears radical at first, taking on his family when he is wronged and even asking to leave in protest with his wife children in the middle of the night. But as soon as his wife proves to be more enterprising and conscientious than him, Razaak starts to want to fall back on tradition. He hates the house that his wife builds for the family on Lobengula Street because, as many say, it looks like a train house! But the truth is that they now have a house of sorts.

At one point Razaak cries out: “I am the father and I decide (for my daughters). We will court trouble if we do not follow tradition.” He feels defeated by his wife and falls back on the extended family which has all along looked down upon him. In chapter 17, which is the climax for me, Razaak spills the beans pitifully: “I don’t have the courage. Abaa was right about sticking to tradition. You, Nurse, my wife-you are all moving too fast for me.”

While this is a rare story about the lives of Indians in Zimbabwe, sadly the Africans are totally behind the scenes, only coming in as houseboys. Jabulani, for instance is rather unexplored. He is seen but is not heard.

Asked by Asjad Nazir of the EasternEye on what inspired her to write this novel, Fatima Kara says, “During my childhood in Bulawayo’s vibrant Indian community, I saw a lot of things that troubled me — like young women travelling to faraway places to enter arranged marriages and Indian men practicing civil disobedience against the white police. I couldn’t know for sure what happened to them all, but I wanted to write a version of their stories.”

On Amazon it is indicated that Fatima Kara is a Zimbabwean writer living in the USA and that the author has an MFA from Spalding University in Kentucky. When not writing, she propagates fruit and nut trees, and plants them in schools and rural communities around Zimbabwe.

The Train House on Lobengula Street was shortlisted for the UK’s Laxfield Literary Launch Prize in 2020. The book can be ordered through: Amazon.com: The Train House on Lobengula Street: 9781915023094: Kara, Fatima: Books

 

 

 

The writer from Matobo speaks...

Vuso Mhlanga (VM) interviews Zimbabwean novelist, Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya( TNN) on her new novel, A Portrait of Emlanjeni published by Carnelian Heart Publishing in the UK this March 2023.

VM: Your new novel, A Portrait of Emlanjeni is basically about a country girl from Matobo who is made pregnant while she is still in school and her painful fights. Why did you pick on a young woman and accidental pregnancy as the central issue to this story?

TNN: Understandably, the story is not solely about Zanele and her pregnancy. Indeed her matter is one of the main reasons for the story. I write about things that break my heart. When growing up in Matobo, I saw a lot of girls with brilliant minds being turned simply into mothers and wives of men who only visited their families once in two years or never returned from eGoli.

VM: Sad indeed

TNN: Yes, my heart goes to the girl child of Matobo and all Zimbabwe. The girls become mothers prematurely not because of their willingness but because of the environment. Schools are few, scantily-resourced, and far away. After walking 10 kilometers to and from school, the girls come home to help with house chores thereby making them fail to study. That is not the only problem; male school drop outs wait for these girls by the river or in the valleys and persuade or force them into these doomed relationships. That is is the Zanele territory!

VM: And I also see that these voracious boys actually have one destination, eGoli!

TNN: The matter does not end there, in most cases, these marriages fail and even these young mothers end up going eGoli too, to work. Children are then left with senile grandparents who cannot properly manage. Even if Emlanjeni people try to preserve their moral values and culture, these new issues cause the moral fabric to decay. Children no longer belong to the community because the generation of young and middle-aged parents is not there to keep the social values as they were before. This is the matter of this novel.

There is need to balance the socio - economic situation in building more schools with teachers and revival of industries so that families can stay together and built a more responsible future. South Africa is the only place where Emlanjeni people can work, but this is not about Emlanjeni village only. Almost every family in the country is supported by members who work outside the country. It is not a problem of Emlanjeni alone.

VM: Zanele is an intelligent girl but during her first accidental slip, she is made pregnant by a fellow village boy. What lessons should young people have from this?

TNN:  Young people, not girls only, must always guard their bodies and think about a future and a life they want.  They must know that it does not take many sexual encounters to fall pregnant.

VM: Someone may say that you carefully present the breathtaking environs of Matobo as a rich and key character to this novel just like in Cry the Beloved Country and Waiting for the rain. What do you say?

TNN: I had to take the reader with me presumably from Bulawayo, to Emlanjeni village, where the story is happening. We discussed this a lot with my initial editor, Tanaka Chidora. So, making Emlanjeni Village a character was at the back of our minds.

VM: Can you say anything about your growing up in Matobo? What place does it hold in your heart?

TNN: I cannot even imagine growing up in any other place. Ah, Matobo; the sounds and smells of the mornings and evenings shaped my being. I feel the cool morning air of that place and the cold on my shoeless feet. I feel the September heat. I hear the Matobo cows mooing and the cockerels announcing the hours of day. I hear the women laughing by the well as they fetch water and tell each other stories about their men, their children and their many dreams. Even now, I see the men cutting wood and talking among themselves lazily as they share a beer calabash and the momentary cigarette. Rich memories came into this novel and I hope my readers will wallow in them.

VM: The title Portrait of Emlanjeni suggests that this story is some kind of a picture of Emlanjeni. What did you mean by that title? How did you arrive at it?

TNN: The story is about many stories in one, many issues intertwine. It is all about Emlanjeni people’s traditions, culture and their way of life. There is the issue of contestable traditional practices affect women. There is, for example, MaMpunzi being married to her late aunt’s husband. It will cause rich debates. There is the avenging spirit and some will say is it real? There are issues concerning Christianity versus traditional religion, working together as a community, sharing everything and helping each other in everything. There is judicial conflict. The whole thing becomes a portrait, a picture. For that, Chidora said let’s settle on the portrait word. Even the second editor and ultimate publisher, Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure liked it too.

VM: The women in this novel are explored deeply; especially the way they talk, love, work and feel. For me, they erupt from the page!

TNN: Thank you, Vuso. I did not set out to write as deeply as you say about the women. I just wrote. The women of Emlanjeni are what they are. Working together, accepting, understanding and helping each other. I am still, in my own way, one of those women. I am in each and every one of them. I exist because they do and see, appreciate and value my existence too.

VM: There is a lot of humor and comic moments in this novel and yet the novel also dwells partly on the civil war and tragedies of the early 1980’s that took place in Matobo and the whole southern region of Zimbabwe. How were you able to handle all that together but coming up with a beautiful story?

TNN: I am able to mention the evil tragedies of the early 80’s because the pain, sorrow and fear still exist in the people of that region. It is something that cannot be ignored. Looking at Bhalagwe mine continues to remind the people of what befell them in that time. It is there in our country’s history. It was going to be a mischief and betrayal on my part not to mention, even in passing, since the story of Emlanjeni travels through the place.

VM: How long did it take you drafting, writing and finally publishing this novel?

TNN: I wrote the story in 2013, in anger and mental turmoil, after I had shut down my business. I wrote the whole first draft of the manuscript in 21 days. I was not talking to anyone.

VM: What have you learnt through writing and producing this book?

TNN: Through writing this book, I learned that writing a book and getting it published is not a one man or woman show. Many people are involved who become part of the book. The first person to read the first draft, David Mungoshi, passed on before the back was published. As authors, we must be patient and work well with others. This book went through the hands of four different people because the final editor.

VM: Could you take us through all the books that you have written and what each is about.

TNN: I have published four books so far. The two Ndebele novels, Izinyawo Zayizolo and Zalabantu Ziyebantwini have helped in preserving language and culture for the future generation. The collection of short stories in English, The fifty Rand note and other stories has been well received by readers and scholars.  

VM: What is your view about publishing this story with Carnelian Heart Publishing who are out of Zim?

TNN: I am happy that the book was published outside Zimbabwe by a publisher with the means to take it across the world and back to Zimbabwe itself. It is no secret that local publishers are overwhelmed by economic challenges and have downsized greatly on fiction. Very sad! The other issue is that the local market is struggling under current economic challenges and people cannot afford buying books. The book now competes with mealie meal and relish. So people tend to photocopy or to share that one copy in the village or township. So it is the time to publish abroad.

VM: In Portrait of Emlanjeni your pen takes us back in time to a world of powerful chiefdoms and benevolent, wise and powerful kings. Tell us more about that world and what inspired that motif!

TNN: Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya: I was a keen reader of Wilbur Smith, in his stories; he portrays African people as people with no system, no brains, no order. So I was answering his views on issues to do with the hierarchy of the Villages to the Chief and to the Spiritual leaders of African people. I was trying to show that we do have the order, and that in our own ways, we could live in peace and respect of each other.

VM: Thank you so much for your time and responses, Nomsa.

+Vuso Mhlanga is a literary critic and academic based at the University of Zimbabwe where he teaches Literature in English. He also has a keen interest in Law and educational matters.

 

 

 

 

 

Ignatius Mabasa writes intro to Shamhu YeZera Renyu

 Musumo

Shamhu Yezera Renyu raita kuti ndifunge kuti, mudetembi Memory Chirere anonetsa kuti umuwanire mupanda kana tasvika panyaya dzekunyora nhetembo.

Chirere munyori asvika panotyisa pakasiyana nepaaive mazuva aakanyora nhetembo dziri muna Tipeiwo Dariro, kana muna Bhuku Risina Basa. Munyori Chirere ari mubhuku Shamhu Yezera Renyu abva zera uye akwira manera asi kwete evaRozvi ekunoturunura mwedzi.

Uyu ave munyori anoziva kuti kuve munyori hachisi chipo chake semunyori, asi chipo chevanhu chinofanira kubuda maari chichinopinda muvanhu kuti munyori agove murapi anorapa vanorwara mumagariro. Kunyora kwaChirere nhetembo dzino kunenge kupakura kwamai vane vana vazhinji, vanopakura vachisara vasina, asi chinovapa kuguta kuziva kuti vana vavo vaguta, nyangwe ivo vaine nzara.

Nhetembo dziri mubhuku rino dzinotaura kuti Chirere ave kudivi revakuru vanoona zviitiko zvehupenyu hwazvino, asi vachiona kuti kwavakabva, makuriro avakaita nezvavakanzwa imhodzi dzakaputirwa muchipepa dzikapfekerwa muchengo chemba. Kubudikidza nenhetembo idzi, Chirere ari kuvhomora, oputunura chipepa chine mhodzi dzakare idzodzo, odzidyara muvhu renguva ino, odziyemura dzichimera, kukura nekubereka. Ari kukoka vaverengi kuti vadye naye nhopi yenguva dzaakanga ari kakomana kuNyombwe, kumakomo eMavhuradonha. Tinokura tiri mumisha yedu, asi makwenzi, miti, tsine, zvuru, nzizi nemakomo atakakwira zvinodzoka kuzotiyeuchidza kuti paye pawakadarika nemandiri, mweya wangu wakanamira pauri, uye zvaunofunga nekurangarira ndini newe.

Asi kana zvake Chirere ari nyanduri, nhetembo dzake dzinomutengesa kuti iye mutauri wengano nemunyori wenyaya pfupi. Manyorero aChirere haasi  emunhu anoda kuti vanhu vafunge kuti kunyora nhetembo ibasa rekuvhiya svosve kuti ugosara nedehwe racho kuti urirovere paruware nehoko, kwete! Chirere anonyora nhetembo dzake seanotamba, uyewo seanotambisa pfungwa dzevaverengi. Kashoma kuti unete kana kunzwa kuda kusiira nhetembo dzake panzira, nekuti kufanana nengano, muverengi anongoramba achibvunza kuti “Chii chakazoitika?”

Chirere anosetsa muverengi, asi achidzura shumba ndebvu, nekusvina mamota embwende. Anotamba nemazwi, asi achifukunura mazimbambaira eruzivo rwuri mururimi rweChiShona zvekuti unobva waona kuti chokwadi vanhu vanonyora vakapakurirwa nemugwaku kuti vave mhizha.

Maziso ake anoona zvinoonekwa neruzhinji, asi chipo chake chiri mukutora izvozvo zvamunoti zvemazuva ese, obva azvisvinyanga semusuva wesadza. Munomuona Memory Chirere achiseva musuva iwoyo mumarwadzo kana mibvunzo inenge minzwa michena yemuunga mosara makashama iye achitsenga.

Nhetembo dziri mubhuku rino dzinobata nguva, nzvimbo, maonero nematingindira akawanda. Chave kudiwa ibhuku rekupenengura zvinhu zvakawanda zvaanobata – maonero ake ehudiki, pfungwa dzake pamusoro perudo, kuseka kwake hupenzi huri matiri – kusvika mumaburitsiro aanoita mapere ari murima rehupenyu hwedu.

Ignatius Mabasa, Harare, 2023.

+order this book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Shamhu-Yezera-Renyu-Memory-Chirere/dp/1914287118/ref=sr_1_2?crid=547U5IZCHOHM&keywords=Memory+Chirere&qid=1686870413&sprefix=memory+chirere,aps,179&sr=8-2

+ Get a copy of this book in Harare for $17usd. Contact Book Fantastic on +263779210403. They meet anyone in town (cbd) and offer delivery services anywhere in Harare and the country (for an extra fee)