House of Stone by Zimbabwean author Novuyo Rosa Tshuma was the Winner of the Edward Stanford Prize for Fiction with a Sense of Place 2019, Longlisted for Rathbones Folio Prize 2019, Shortlisted Orwell Prize 2019, and Shortlisted for Dylan Thomas Prize 2019.

The main character is Zamani, a young Zimbabwean man, who finding himself without home or family tries to inviegle himself into the home of Abednego and Agnes Mlambo, after their son Bukhosi goes missing. He attempts to replace the longed for son, to gain their trust, and prise apart their family histories and secrets. In doing so we are taken back through Zimbabwean history through the 1970s and 1980s.

The story traces the history of the fledgling nation of Zimbabwe, although in broad brush strokes and a slightly confusing back-and-forth fashion which requires some after-reading research to untangle. The Rhodesia region was originally annexed by the British South Africa Company under Cecil Rhodes after conquering Mashonaland in 1890 and seizing Matabeleland in 1893 from the Matabele people. In 1923 Southern Rhodesia was formed as a self governing British colony until in 1965 when the white separatist government declared independence from Britain and became Rhodesia. There was guerilla warfare for the next 15 years with Black Nationalist forces until a peace treaty and formation of the nation of Zimbabwe in 1980 (the name being translated Houses of Stone). Robert Mugabe was elected as prime minister. The two main Black Nationalist groups had been the ZAPU under Mugabe, consisting mainly of Shona people, and the ZANU under Joshua Nkomo, mainly made up of Mathebele peoples including the Ndebele and Kalanga. The Gukurahundi massacres which featured heavily in this book, were reprisals by the armed forces of ZAPU, particularly the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, under instruction from Mugabe, eliminating any “dissidents” from Nkomo’s opposing party, but ending in the torture, rape, burning and genocide of at least 20,000 men, women and children. The Gukurahundi means "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains,” later described by Mugabe as “a moment of madness.”

This book reinforced why I often don’t get on with prize winning literature. It was a difficult read, and took me half the book before I was able to settle into it at all. None of the characters were at all likeable. Zamani was a manipulative psychopath, Abednego was a violent drunk, and it was impossible to care about any of them. The story shifted abruptly from setting to setting, to different eras, and between reality and dream like states with little warning. There was graphic onscreen violence, rape and torture, obviously consistent with the historical reality. Disappointingly though, I probably learned more from my google search afterwards, but I guess at least the book inspired me to do that. ( )

A novel which is really an anecdotal history of Zimbabwe, from its last days being called Rhodesia up to the close-to-present day. Very disturbing read at times, unsurprisingly, but with a lot of humor, and a broad cast list. Fascinating and expressive. ( )

Er zijn boeken, waar je meteen een mening over hebt. En andere, die even moeten bezinken. House of Stone, van de Zimbabwaanse schrijfster Novuyo Rosa Tshuma (1988) behoort tot die tweede categorie. Het boek draait om Zamani, een jongeman van halverwege de twintig, die een tuinhuisje huurt bij de familie Mlambo in Bulawayo, een stad in het zuidwesten van Zimbabwe. Zamani is ook de verteller van het verhaal. In letterlijke zin: je hebt echt het gevoel dat hij rechtstreeks tot jou, de lezer spreekt. Maar je vriend is hij niet. Je krijgt al snel door dat hij een bepaald onbetrouwbare verteller is. En dan heeft hij ook nog snode plannen.

Zamani is namelijk als een soort koekoeksjong op zoek naar een nieuwe familie. Hoe het precies zit met zijn eigen familie komt pas laat in zijn verhaal naar voren. Aanvankelijk is alleen duidelijk dat hij de plek van Bukhosi in wil nemen, het enige kind van zijn gastgezin. De negentienjarige Bukhosi is spoorloos verdwenen. Zijn ouders hebben geen idee wat er met hem is gebeurd en zijn wanhopig. Dat Zamani meer over de verdwijning weet is de lezer vanaf het begin duidelijk, maar hoe het precies zit vertelt hij niet meteen. En tegen Bukhosi’s ouders zegt hij helemaal niks. Sterker nog, hij gebruikt de situatie om een plekje in de familie te veroveren. Onderdeel daarvan is dat hij lange en intieme gesprekken voert, eerst met de vader, en later met de moeder, over hun familiegeschiedenis. Aan de hand van die familiegeschiedenissen komen er pijnlijke episodes uit de geschiedenis van Zimbabwe aan het licht, die eigenlijk de kern van het verhaal vormen.

House of Stone is niet een boek om gezellig even tussendoor te lezen. Dat heeft deels te maken met het taalgebruik, dat niet eenvoudig is. En deels met de manier waarop Zamani zijn verhaal vertelt, bijna zoals iemand tegen je praat, met herhalingen, omissies, niet altijd in logische volgorde, en belangrijke informatie in kleine tussenzinnetjes verstopt. Maar het heeft zeker ook te maken met de politieke context. Die is niet vrolijk. Het boek gaat over het leven in Zimbabwe onder dictator Robert Mugabe, zowel in de 21e eeuw, waarin je als demonstrant zomaar spoorloos kan verdwijnen, maar ook in de vroege jaren ‘80, toen er een complete bevolkingsgroep werd uitgeroeid omdat zij niet massaal genoeg op Mugabe hadden gestemd bij de eerste verkiezingen in het toen net onafhankelijke Zimbabwe. Tshuma maakt het haar buitenlandse lezers niet makkelijk: ze veronderstelt veel voorkennis en ik moest best veel opzoeken op internet om de historische context goed te begrijpen.

Al met al een uitdagend boek om te lezen. Je moet je aandacht er echt bij houden. Toch was dat het wel waard: ik heb nieuwe dingen geleerd en mijn wereld is weer een beetje groter geworden. Tegelijk moet ik erbij zeggen dat mijn wereldbeeld er bepaald niet positiever op is geworden. ( )

A fantastic story made all the more compelling by the real-world history; Zimbabwe oppressed by colonial Great Britain and then once independent in 1980, having Robert Mugabe turn in to a brutal dictator and massacre civilians of the minority Ndebele group at Gukurahundi. It reminded me of the postcolonial books ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ (the Congo) and ‘What is the What’ (Sudan) which I also loved as much for the education as the writing.

The way Tshuma uses the tale of broken patrilineage across generations, with one man fathered out of wedlock by a white colonist and another by a rapist who committed atrocities seems to symbolize the plight of the country over the past century, and still trying to pick up the pieces today, e.g. searching for one’s true family, searching for one’s true country. The narrator is a young man who gradually uncovers the truth about the past in his country and the lives of the family he’s trying to ingratiate himself into, and we ourselves gradually begin to understand more about him. It’s a wonderful, chilling character, and the story is very well told.

The book is more about Gukurahundi and those who carried out Mugabe’s wishes (the current president, Emerson “The Crocodile” Mnangawa, and Perence “Black Jesus” Shiri included), but there are also references to British atrocities via chemical and biological warfare engineered by Professor Robert Symington that were interesting (and depressing) to read up on. The way Rhodesia’s border had been drawn by Britain in a nonsensical way didn’t help, but the pattern of a power vacuum once an oppressor is gone and violent factions invariably forming seems to recur so often that it makes me wonder about humanity as a whole. There is a lightness and buoyancy to Tshuma’s style, but what she’s saying here is devastating.

Quotes:
“What are honor and duty and country except the trinity of a live, moving hearse into which we throw conquest’s history-riddled bodies? What do you suppose those soldiers of the Schutzstaffel told themselves as they flung in the name of honour and duty and country Jewish bodies, warm and breathing still, into the furnaces of Treblinka? What do you suppose the founders of the US of A were thinking as they wiped out whole Native American populations? And those soldiers of our own Mugabe’s 5 Brigade, what do you suppose ran through their minds as they hacked and hacked our people to death in Matabeleland during Gukurahundi? I imagine they all saw themselves as ordinary men, just men and even boys who had mothers and lovers waiting somewhere with rose-scented memories bosomed in their chests.” ( )

Powerful, exquisitely affecting, blisteringly honest

House of Stone is an impressive debut that examines the integration and recreation of personal and national identities through the lens of one “family” from the dissolution of Rhodesia, the birth of Zimbabwe, and what being a nation entails.

It is through the lens of the hopeful wily protagonist Zamani and his obsessive need to immerse himself into the family history of his landlords in order to re-create his “his-story” that makes this storyline so poignant.

While the violence is brutal it is well-balanced by the lively luminous prose as Tshuma deftly weaves the historical and personal into a seamless chronicle and provides a testament to the “culture of enforced amnesia.”

At the end, I was so appreciative of how cleverly this story not only engaged me into the lives of these compelling characters, provided a thought-provoking history lessons but left me with an extraordinary reading experience of a place and time that is more universal than not.

This is a perfect example of how to write history into fiction.

I look forward to writing future works by Tshuma. ( )