Part 8
A poet, a novelist, a filmmaker, and a gender and culture activist, Tsitsi Dangarembga was born on February 14th, 1959, in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). According to Coundouriotis, when she was only two, she moved to England with her family, where she lived until she was six. In 1965, she returned to Rhodesia with her family, started her formal education at a mission school in Mutare, and completed her secondary school at an American convent school. That was the time when her writing process started; writing just for herself was a sort of cure, making her a way out of the alienation she was exposed to in her schools. As she explained in her interview with different media houses, she read the classics of English literature both at school and at home (probably as a result of formal education); however, she read her first African novel (Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat) as a teenager, but it was not until she returned from Cambridge shortly before Zimbabwean independence in 1980 that she became passionately involved with African and African-American literature.
As she said it in her talk with journalists, she has been portraying her life in the various forms of literary works. She centralizes the issues that she faced when writing poems, novels, and even film scripts. The first novel that made her prominent across the continent and even at the globe level is Nervous Conditions.
This novel is about women’s placement and worsening realities in precolonial and colonial Zimbabwe. It follows the major character, Tambu. This girl is the strongest, most strategic, cautious, and goal-oriented girl among other characters mentioned in the novel. Since her family was too poor and patriarchal, she faced a challenge when moving towards education. The family was, in a way, to afford the school fees of her younger brother Nhamo. He was very arrogant and the one that always needed a show-up over her. But he suddenly lost his life. Then she was the only one to take his place. Thus, the family, with the alerting initiation of Babamukuru, the father of Tambu’s father, was assigned to continue her education in this man’s house.
Then Tambu was taken to her uncle. There were various forms of alienation in this house. That is, she was faced with a new way of life, a new way of people interaction, and a new way of culture in general. However, she was always optimistic in those troubling situations. She was smart in looking for a way out of the problems on her way to education. But the daughter of Babamukuru, Nyasha, was not strong enough to cope with the alienated socio-cultural life of Zimbabwe since she was born and grew up in Britain. Thus, she only knew the living style of this country. Her father, Babamukuru, was not effective in showing her directions as per her psychological makeup. Then she lost her identity, became mentally sick, and ended up in a hospital bed. But Tambu was so smart that she achieved her educational goal. She joined the mission girls’ school.
Tsitsi Dangarembga did extend the story of Tambu in the sequel of the novel that is called The Book of Not. The story even extends to the third novel called This Mournable Body.
The writer was asked by the SABC journalist about the unforgettable incident she faced when writing the novel Nervous Conditions. She relied on the following: “I have finished writing the novel in 1984. I can’t publish it since no one could assist me financially in Zimbabwe at that time. I was obliged to keep it till I solved this problem. In 1988, it was published. But within these four years, I was turning my face to the film industry. I was writing and directing various films that can again incur money and keep work.”
For the one who read the novel, the personal trait of the protagonist Tanbu looks after the personal life path of the writer herself. Tambu in the novel is a very strong girl who never gives up on lots of dragging challenges. Rather, she looks out for the solutions systematically. In the same fashion, Dangarembga also looks for a solution to the problems she faced. The above incident is the best instance of this assimilation.
As her biography showed she was experiencing the worst face of alienation since her younger age. As she said to the media, the inferior position that society allotted for females just by their sex is the most important issue that worried her for many years. She actively saw the subversion of women and girls in her area. Then she picked her pen up to echo these unfair treatments as other dominant women writers did after the independence of Zimbabwe. Artistically she addressed the severity of gender biases, violence, and ignorance.
As she mentioned in the interview she was also concerned with the inferiority of women and girls based on their color. As she was in abroad with her family, she was facing this challenge in various degrees. She portrays this challenge in Nervous Conditions too. It was exhibited by the character Nyasha. To show the harshness of the problem the writer created Nyasha and ended up her as a loser that resulted from psychological trauma.
She believed that the mentioned challenges are common threats across humankind. She argued that echoing the issue artistically is one measure for striving for the solution. In this regard, Dr. Rose Chikafa, a lecturer at Harare University, said while she was having a short interview with Herald that “the literary works of Dangarembga aimed at alleviating the socio-cultural issues of the people not only Zimbabwe but also African too. She at the same time documented the historical events of her country artistically.”
Dangarembga believed in the relevance of education for bringing a difference in gender-based treatments. She centralizes it by creating the strong zeal of Tambu for learning. Tambu was patiently passing thorny surfaces for the sake of her education. The writer developed the story of the character based on the relevance and mandatory of females’ commitment and persistent effort which should be made for education as African females. After this self-commitment, Tambu was seen finding the right way to education and a good life in the long run. The wife of Babamukuru is also a strong woman in managing her education and her family. She had MA as her husband. But the socio-cultural setting is not willing to adore her degree. It is Babamuku’s degree which is respected and known. But her education was refunding and enabling her to build her self-esteem finally.
Since she was mainly focusing on film script writing, production, and directing, Dangarembga was not writing novels as expected. The selected works are mainly based on various sources the first one is her short story called The Letter. It was published in 1985 in Sweden. Following that, she published her first novel, Nervous Conditions, in 1988, which made her the first black woman author of Zimbabwe, whose work was also published in Great Britain. This novel made her win the African Section of the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989. It was the one among the top 100 African books list. It was also in the story list of BBCS.
She also captured a story for the film Neria in 1993. This film, as she said it to SABC, is written based on her personal story partially. In this film, she framed gender issues and females’ sufferings artistically. Furthermore, she produced her films, Everyone’s Child in 1996 and Kare Kare Zvako (Mother’s Day in English) in 2004. Two years later, she wrote The Book of Not: A Sequel to Nervous Conditions. That means after the first story, which was told 18 years ago, the continuing story was addressed to readers through this book. Though the time interval between the two stories is so long, the hotness of the issue till today made this publication very relevant for the full picture of the characters in the novel. The destiny of the major character Tambu was creating suspense for the readers. Thus, her fate was decided by the second novel. The author also wrote the third novel, which has a continuation from the previous two books.
In the process of challenging patriarchy and women’s subversion, every discipline had its share. Artists who orchestrate human beings’ lives in the form of a creative world can play a lot. Their works can educate, alert, inform, and change the minds of the people enthusiastically. Thus, Tsitsi Dangarembga has been throwing her share in this case. Since verbalizing and expressing the problem itself is one way ahead for the solution, African writers should be active enough to raise such issues in their creative works. For her influential gender-based works, she deserves many thanks.
BY MEKDES TAYE (PhD)
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2024
