Mhenenguro

A Transcendent Story of Hope The Ties that Bind is one of the novels that held me captive once I set my eyes on it. It was on Easter Friday’s eve; with nothing to do I got hold of my copy and set my eyes on it as evening was fast approaching. It has this power of imposing its ties on the reader that one cannot afford to put it down. Thus it happened I failed to sleep till 0200hrs of the following day as I embark on the reading journey. To those who read the book, I am sure they know why that has to happen. And for those who haven’t seen it, I would only say, it’s the magic of words and storytelling from Chidavaenzi that imprisoned me in a journey of 156 pages. Hence, I don’t regret my captivity. The power of description took me through several journeys. It takes one through the devastating trail that the HIV (AIDS) pandemic left on individuals, families, communities and the nation at large. The pandemic threatened certain families with extinction as it did on Gogo ...

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood (2001) is made up of ideologically packed recollections of memories by someone who confessed that “we, as whites could not own a piece of Africa, but, [who] new with startling clarity, that Africa owned me [her]” (p.306). The protagonists there are the Fullers who are in constant conversations with their neighbours and environment: which for the most part is nations that constituted the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Fuller’s recollections make up a moving story where serious identity, belonging and power issues are continuously hammered through day-today family talk and activities that are then transferred to the immediate community, nation and region at large. These manifests through stereotypical attachments placed on humanity’s names, behaviour and attitudes which in most cases are cast on race. Thus acts like wiping the nose with the back of the hand, putting up with hostile places like Devuli Ranch and Chirundu,...