By Beaven Tapureta
Front cover of Strides of a Woman
Some time not far in the past – a respected founding member of Zimbabwe Women Writers, Mrs Tawona Mtshiya, loses her husband to whom she had been married for decades. She’s devastated and yet strengthened by the comforting presence of close writing friends.
Among the writers who come to see Mrs Mtshiya are Virginia Phiri and Eresina Hwede. During the visit, Mrs Mtshiya suddenly says, “Why not capture moments such as these in an anthology of short stories?”
Phiri and Hwede agree to give this idea a thought, for they discern in Mrs Mtshiya’s words “some yearning in her request and a sense of loneliness”. On their way, they continue to discuss the short story anthology idea. And in their talk, a word keeps echoing – TRANSITION.
This is the inspiration that gave birth to the short story anthology Strides of a Woman.
In an interview days after the official launch of the book in Harare, compiler and editor Eresina Hwede revealed that they discovered their fellow writer, Mrs Mtshiya, now sadly widowed, was “transitioning and there are so many women who go through these phases at different levels”.
Given this background, one would expect Strides of a Woman to be entirely a book about death, yet it is not.
Hwede explained, “It is about moving from one stage to another in life. Mrs Mtshiya had been married for decades and now she was facing life alone. This is death, very honest and true, something that cannot be reversed. Her (Mrs Mtshiya’s) experience is different from divorce, single parenting, weddings, puberty, you name it. So women wrote about all this and most of the stories are personal.”
This thoughtful bouquet of 30 short stories written in Shona and English languages by 24 female authors is a huge contribution to the shifting understanding of human rights, motherhood, growing up, etc. Women have made it and continue to make it in different fields once deemed ‘for males only’. The book celebrates women embracing this change, psychologically or as deeply felt in Strides of a Woman; they have captured the changes emotionally.
“Emotionally women are more in touch with their feelings than men, so a little shift in their lives, they feel it and have a way of expressing it. So the kind of stories we got on this were pretty wide… Women are women and they will always be women, strong, articulate and very much emotionally focused. No apologies on this one,” said Hwede.
But how have men reacted to this shift? Surely, feedback from male readers about books such as Strides of a Woman and others by women writers is crucial yet it is rare.
“So far I have not heard from any male reader who has read some of the stories in the book. From the collection compared to other stories I have edited before, there has been some shift in how women understand their rights and how the law works in their favour. It is clear in the way some of the characters negotiated their way around gender issues,” Hwede said.
This poverty of a male readership for literature written by women has been a cause for concern for other women writers, including the internationally recognized Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who, in a recent report by Winston Manrique Sabogal, is said to have expressed it in these words: “If more men read books about women’s lives, literature could improve communication between men and women. Women read books written by men, and women and men read books written by men. That’s why I think there’s often a kind of misunderstanding.”
The ‘misunderstanding’ between men and women cuts deep into all sections of human relations, be it marriage, friendship, business, even the simplest relations we take for granted such as the father-son or mother-daughter bonds.
Delving into Strides of a Woman is like taking a tour of a different world in which you drift far from the common radicalism that’s usually expected in feministic books by women writers. It is about love in its many forms and/or lack of it, simple.
Girls going through puberty, playfully bathing nude in a river in the rural area was once one of the safe games in the countryside, but not nowadays when insatiable lust has taken over humanity, when drugs and sex have taken over the youths who mistake these pleasures and call it love.
Stories like ‘Summer of Changes’ by Eresina Hwede and ‘Zvinopera Wani’ by Chengetai Nyagumbo capture the pride of girls’ bodily changes, an undisturbed process.
Yet in ‘Pieces of Me’ by Nyarai Gunda a young girl transits between two settings due to circumstances at different stages in her life and at last, she migrates from a rural home back to the city where her big dreams are ground to dust in the mill of drugged fantasies and illusions. The reader is relieved from the ‘victim concept’ attached to girlhood when he/she reads encouraging stories like ‘Conqueror’ by Aletta Roven C Lunga or another in which a girl saves a boy from being offered as blood sacrifice by a popular Pastor who does that to get more followers.
The stories skilfully deal with a variety of issues. ‘Memories in A Photo Album’ by Shumirai Nhanhanga and ‘A Letter from a Single Mother’ by Jane Sibusiso Ngiwane, in their traditional forms inspire and are some of the short stories the reader will enjoy.
The truth that women are also human beings who are susceptible to feelings of anger and bitterness but are also capable of self-control, is well portrayed in stories like ‘I am Happy’ by Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya and ‘Grave Mistake’ by Virginia Phiri.
The wife in Ngwenya’s story, instead of reacting angrily after hubby brings home a new wife, she goes about her usual daily chores, humming the refrain ‘I am happy’. This calm show of a positive attitude marks her bravery, puts the new wife and the hubby in an uneasiness that sees the new wife leaving the next morning.
However, this exemplary self-control contrasts with what happens in ‘Grave Mistake’, a gripping short-short story. Long-suppressed marital depression violently bursts and lands the wife in prison. She's guilty as well as innocent but her innocence seems legally ignored.
Married men are yet to accept the gift of leadership and creative potential of their wives. There's a story that's so realistic that the reader is reminded again of an empowered women who are being denied the love and attention they deserve.
Daniel in ‘The Deep End’ by Tamara Madondo decides to personally 'run the show' of a successful business project he initiated with his wife, relegating her to 'staying at home'. She silently refuses the relegation and rediscovers her gift in music. Here the writer leaves the reader wondering if Daniel continues to pull his wife down.
Strides of a Woman is an anthology that can change the way men think about women in personal or business lives.
According to Hwede, the anthology is going online in a bid to flow with the digital current.
Below are images from Strides of a Woman book launch:
Two of the contributors, Shumirai Nhanhanga (left) and Chipo Chimoto posing with copies of the book
One of the young guests reading from Strides of a Woman
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