THIS SEPTEMBER SUN, A BOOK YOU MUST READ!

Bryony Rheam’s This September Sun (ISBN: 978-0-7974-3744-9) published by ’amaBooks, Bulawayo, in 2009 has really opened a platform for literary conversation through reviews published in different outlets. Below are two more reviews, which we hope you will enjoy and trigger further interest in reading the book. Mungana’s review appeared in The Standard and the second review done by Phillip Chidavaenzi appeared in The Zimbabwean. Next to the reviews is a poem We Falter No More by Courage Muganji, which appeals to the winning instinct inherent in all of us who dream, see visions, the way we do, and form them into words on paper for others to see, feel, taste, hear, touch the truth and meaning of this world.


REVIEWER: FRANCIS MUNGANA

I must begin this review by confessing that prior to my reading Rheam’s This September Sun I had very little knowledge of the fictional works of white Rhodesian and Zimbabwean authors. As a university undergraduate majoring in English in the late 1980’s I was formally introduced to Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing, Arthur Shearly Cripps’ poetry and T.O. McLoughlin’s Karima and that was all. On my own I later read Lessing’s Collected African Stories, The Four Gated City and African Laughter, and I also delved into Ian Douglas Smith’s autobiography Bitter Harvest. This September Sun impressed me as a new refreshing breeze that offers an incisive insight into the Rhodesian and, later, Zimbabwean psyche.
The book is divided into three parts, though there is a chronological sequence in its progression. One is skilfully ushered, often through letters and diary entries, into a rich but complex tapestry of both Zimbabwean history and a family’s history and secrets. It is an intriguing and riveting story of the protagonist Ellie McIntyre and her grandmother Evelyn Saunders. The novel reminds me of Chenjerai Hove’s apt observation that one can best learn the history of a country by reading its fictional works, rather than visiting its history textbooks. This book, which reads as if it is autobiographical, is a great tale of the bond between Ellie and Gran Evelyn, a bond which goes beyond the latter’s death.
Part One opens with Zimbabwe celebrating its independence on 18 April 1980, which date coincides with the protagonist’s sixth birthday. This transition from the old world (Rhodesia) to a new one (Zimbabwe) mirrors the change in Evelyn Saunders who leaves her husband and embraces her own independence. In a peculiar way, the separation also signals an independence of sorts for Ellie who can now pay frequent visits to her beloved Gran who now lives alone. Henceforth we witness the growth and blooming of this very strong relationship. Part One closes with Gran’s gruesome murder, which also reflects the end of a chapter in the protagonist’s life. Parts Two and Three of the novel make use of Gran’s diary entries stretching from January 1946 to October 2004, shortly before her death at age 77. These diary entries gradually provide the missing blocks of the jigsaw puzzle of Gran’s eventful life as well as those of the others in Ellie’s family.
Through the diary entries, Ellie embarks on a journey to unearth the great mystery that her family is. She confesses that ‘all my life my grandmother had been a mystery to me. I was perhaps the dearest person to her, yet I knew the least about her.’(p 233) We witness Ellie moving from naivety and gullibility in the process of ‘dismantling the woman I thought I knew’ and her confrontation and interrogation of a ‘childhood of lies’. In the process, she resurrects a life littered with ‘the ghosts of yesterday’. It then dawns on Ellie that ‘the greatest journey we go on is inward towards our selves, rather than outwards and away.’(p 127) How true this statement is for both Ellie and Gran’s lives! Much as Gran detests being ‘surrounded by the ghosts of yesterday’ (p 265), she cannot exorcise these ghosts and the past haunts her relentlessly. It is a past mired in cuckolding her husband Leonard through her relationship with her lover with whom she has an affair reminiscent of Heathcliffe and Catherine’s in Charlotte Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. There is also the ghost of her son Jeremy, the facts of whose death come to light in the novel through Ellie’s reading of her grandmother’s diaries.
One cannot miss the political undertones that colour the pages of the novel. These political undercurrents, which constitute a subplot, offer an incisive insight into Rhodesia of the late 1940s right up to 18 April 1980. We are allowed glimpses of the racist mentality of the hardcore Rhodies who then refuse to come to terms with the reality of a new Zimbabwe. These are shown to have inflated egos and insist on sustaining a life constructed around fantasy and an irretrievable past. Rheam sums up these whites as those who ‘could’ve won the war if only Smith had not given into Nationalist aggression, those who had always been on the brink of victory when Smith had surrendered.’(p 24) There are those like Granddad who feel betrayed by the ‘bloody British… sold us down the river. Fought for King and country. For what? Where is their Empire now?’(p 86) There is also an indictment of the government of Zimbabwe by way of counterbalance. Its shortcomings are portrayed through the culture of fear and instability it inculcates, through the government’s handling of the dark period of dissident disturbances in Matabeleland and in correcting land imbalances. There is however hope in the book that the two races will coexist happily.
The way the book is structured adds to the richness of the narrative. The novel, just like the lives of the characters, does not have a clear beginning and a clear ending. There are constant shifts involving the present, the past and the future. One is reminded of the narrative style of literary greats such as Virginia Wolf, James Joyce and Dambudzo Marechera. When asked by another character about her life, Ellie retorts that ‘the beginning keeps changing.’(p 268) There is a frustrating search by Ellie for a beginning, for rejuvenation. It is from this that the novel gets its title: ‘There is a poetry to September, a song, a promise. It speaks of a new beginning, yet it heralds an end.’(p 115) Such is life, Ellie learns.
Minus the extensive use of extracts reproduced in the book that give it an air of being contrived and unnecessarily add to its volume, This September Sun is a rich addition to the canon of Zimbabwean and world literature. Bryony Rheam’s powerful voice must be accorded a niche in college and university syllabi.

About The Reviewer Francis Mungana is a lecturer in the Department of English and Communication at Midlands State University


REVIEWER: PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI

BRYONY Rheam may sound an unfamiliar name to some readers, but those who follow the trends in contemporary Zimbabwean literature will appreciate that she is no newcomer in the local literary circles. Some of her stories have appeared in the ‘Short Writings from Bulawayo’ series. The Zambian–based Zimbabwean teacher-cum-writer had just had her debut novel – ‘This September Sun’ – published by ’amaBooks.
The book tells the story of Ellie, intertwined with the tales of her loved ones, and how fate often interferes with people’s well-laid plans.
Over the past 10 years, many Zimbabweans have fled socio-economic hardships precipitated by an unstable political environment, in pursuit of the proverbial greener pastures and, as an icing to the cake, a better life.
But Rheam successfully punctures the romantic illusions that many locals have about the European Diaspora –especially in the UK – showing that London is, after all, not the paradise of our dreams, as those fleeing a collapsing nation would quickly admit. When the protagonist, Ellie, gets a chance to go to the UK, she’s overjoyed, but her stay there gives her a rare opportunity of introspection.
What I found striking was the fact that despite her joy at leaving Zimbabwe, when she gets to the UK, she felt “a dislocation” from her “surroundings” and learns that life “was unreal there” (pp125). The general assumption is that white Zimbabweans who go to the UK are better off and can fit in better than their black counterparts, but Rheam successfully enables the readers to disabuse themselves of this notion.
It would appear that dislocation from a familiar environment forces people to hold on to anything that keeps them firmly attached to their roots and this comes out strongly as Ellie begins to think so much about her home. She confesses: “I found myself reading African novels more and more: Nadine Gordimer, André Brink, Doris Lessing…” (pp135).
Rheam also poignantly captures what I would call the terror of the abortive land “reform” in Zimbabwe. Ellie’s return from the UK coincides with the people’s attempts at an artificial escape of the horror on the ground through turning to foreign news and locking themselves up in their homes.
The book is littered with deeply felt, moving scenes such as Ellie’s last encounter with Miles, when she receives the sad news of her grandmother’s murder and when she discusses the family history with her mother as well as the time she spends with Wally dying in a British hospital.
For the greater part, Rheam uses the epistolary style to narrate the story, with letters written by Ellie’s late grandmother revealing a lot of details about the family history and secrets as well as the grandmother’s past love affairs.
It is clear that death unveils a lot of information and secrets as you rummage through a deceased person’s belongings.
Although ‘This September Sun’ starts rather slowly, it’s an engaging novel that’s worth reading.

WE FALTER NO MORE

The initiative to win, granted
The seeds of inspiration can sprout

The little guns can now spit
The blue ink to victory
Liberate literary thoughts and watch them soar

We falter no more but walk to triumph
Achieve sleight of our minds
This potential is my panacea
Forever and ever
Amen

Courage Muganji, Braeside, Harare

WIN-ZIMBABWE TO EXHIBIT AT ZIBF

Half-year old Win-Zimbabwe’s glow continues to shine despite teething difficulties, with the latest beam of hope being an opportunity to exhibit at this year’s Zimbabwe International Book Fair.

Win-Zimbabwe’s debut appearance at the Book Fair will, among other things, assert the organisation’s willpower to transcend all odds and make an impact on the local book industry.

According to the founding Director, Beaven Tapureta, (PICTURED) the organization plans to have an on-the-stand programme called “Literary Treats” where various writers and performance poets will briefly , possibly for an hour or two, entertain visitors to the stand. Literary Treats aims at making visitors enjoy reading and writing.

Tapureta has urged fellow young writers to take advantage of the Book Fair and gather much information about the local book industry’s main players such as publishers, organisations and booksellers.

“I know how much the Book Fair can assist, motivate new writers and inspire the public to buy books. I have been there so many times and gained vast knowledge about the local book industry. I therefore urge writing friends to make use of the various information shared at the book fair,” said Tapureta.

The ZIBF days are from the 26^th to the 31^st July at the Harare Gardens and the theme for this year is “Promoting Cross Cultural Dialogue”. However, the Indaba Conference which accommodates invited people only runs from the 26^th to the 28^th while public days for the ZIBF are from the 29^th to 31^st July, which is also the period for exhibitions.

Among other programmes, ZIBF is also coordinating the Live Literature Center programme which features upcoming and established performance poets, drama groups, and comedians. The Live Literature will be running from the 29^th to 31^st July starting at 10am to 5pm every day. More information for those wishing to take part is obtainable from the ZIBF Head Office on 04-704112 or 04-702104 or write to winzimbabwe@gmail.com for assistance.

You surely need not miss out this one.

MAN OF FEW WORDS

Tinashe Muchuri

Naked
Father and mother collided
Naked
Bred this universal disaster

Bird
Every time a bird sings
I am touched
Its voice tells me
It is you singing to me

NEW WRITERS' NETWORK LAUNCHED

…plans to spread wings into Africa
Source: Newsday, Saturday, July 3, 2010

A group of Zimbabwean writers has established a writers’ association named Writers International Network Zimbabwe (Win-Zimbabwe) hoping to create synergies between local and internationally based Zimbabwean writers.
The brainchild of Beaven Tapureta, Win-Zimbabwe will also work towards training upcoming writers and offering opportunities for publication.
Tapureta, a former programmes officer with the Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe said they had submitted documents with the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe for registration.
“We’re currently in the process of registering. We have since submitted our papers to the National Arts Council,” he said, adding they were ready to operate.
The major thrust of Win-Zimbabwe, he said, was to establish a network of local writers and internationally based Zimbabwean authors.
“Win-Zimbabwe seeks to provide opportunities for intellectual empowerment and rewards for both rural and urban based upcoming writers in Zimbabwe,” he added.
Tapureta came up with this idea after realizing that young writers had limited opportunities for training and platforms to showcase their writing talent.
The 35-year-old Chitungwiza-born writer said in a bid to strengthen the new organisation’s structures, he had drawn on the wealth of influential figures in the writing community both in Zimbabwe and in the diaspora.
The writers include David Mungoshi, Ivor Hartmann and Sarudzayi Barnes.
The organisation’s priority, he said, was to focus on Zimbabwe but they had plans to spread their wings into Africa because “writing has no boundaries”.
The organization held its inaugural meeting in May, which was graced by prominent writers Memory Chirere, Virginia Phiri, Julius Chingono and Daniel Hwendaenda.

ALL SET FOR BOOK FAIR
By Beaven Tapureta
(The Standard)

Preparations for this year’s Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) that takes place in Harare next month are at an advanced stage.
ZIBF director, Greenfield Chilongo, on Wednesday said more than half of exhibition stands have been booked while workshop facilitators and international visitors had confirmed their participation at the event that runs from July 26 to 31.
“Registration has begun and some stands have been taken. We are encouraged by the flow of preparations and we are looking forward to an exhibition with a wider variety of products and activities,” said Chilongo.
He said the structure would take its traditional format while participants from Ghana, Norway and South Africa were expected to add colour to the fair.
Preceding the public exhibition and Live Literature programme is an Indaba that would see stakeholders in the book industry like academics, authors, publishers, booksellers and distributors tackling a wide range of topics.
The Indaba, which would run under the theme “Promoting Cross Cultural Dialogue”, is expected to take place from July 26 to 28 at the Crown Plaza Monomotapa Hotel.
The conference has become a significant forum where current issues affecting the book industry are discussed.
ZIBF organizers revealed that the conference would border on issues related to culture, religion, globalisation and technology among others.
Budding writers attending the Indaba will have an opportunity to interact with well-known Zimbabwean authors and poets who will lead group discussions on July 28 at a youth indaba.
The youth indaba will deal with different aspects of writing such as the novel, short story, theatre, script and film and indigenous literature.
Performance poetry, a genre that has proved to be popular among young poets, judging by their performances at numerous public venues, would be given prominence.
Last year’s ZIBF which ran under the theme “Reading and Writing Zimbabwe” made considerable strides in encouraging the growth of a reading culture in the country.


BOOK REVIEW

Title: This September Sun
Author: Bryony Rheam
Publisher: AmaBooks, Bulawayo
Year: 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7974-3744-9
Reviewed by James Graham
(Source: The Warwick Review, March 2010)

The house of Zimbabwean letters is haunted by a ghost that few of its writers have been able to exorcise. Settler colonialism – in particular, the culture of minority racial rule, with all it entailed in terms of fiercely polarised ideas of nation, race and class – was deeply embedded in the fabric of everyday life for all Rhodesians. So deeply embedded, in fact, that for a generation of writers after independence, black as well as white, Zimbabwe seemed a foreign land. Fixated on the colonial past, these writers appeared unable to conceive a liberated present: their imaginative world was haunted by the spectre of Rhodesia.
With this ambitious first novel, This September Sun, Bryony Rheam joins the ranks of a small but growing number of writers who seem intent on laying this ghost to rest. That is not to say that This September Sun does not also dwell on the past. To the contrary. In its forensically detailed, and at times unapologetically wistful, exploration of Bulawayo’s suburban white society from the 1940s to the present day, Rheam’s novel at first glance appears exemplary of this sepia-tinted trend. What sets this book apart from others in this vein, however, is its focus on two characters whose intertwined stories illuminate an under-represented milieu of both colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwean society.
These two characters are Evie Saunders, an English migrant who arrived in Rhodesia in 1947, and her granddaughter Ellie, born in Bulawayo in 1974. The novel is narrated by Ellie and begins with her recollecting the circumstances of her sixth birthday, the day Zimbabwe gained independence:

On the 18th of April 1980, my grandfather burnt the British flag ... Many white people had already decided to leave by the time the Rhodesian flag was lowered and the new Zimbabwean one hoisted. Grandad said we were in for trouble; this was just the beginning. (1)

This passage is noteworthy not so much for the tragicomic portrait of the inebriated grandfather and his moribund ‘Rhodies never die’ attitude, but because it also marks the day that Ellie’s grandmother left this man in search of her own freedom. Ellie interprets a scar Evie receives from the flag-burning ceremony as a portent:

It looked like the shape of Zimbabwe etched on her arm. I think Gran was always a little proud of the mark, a symbol of the price she paid for freedom. Many years later, the man who murdered my grandmother would remember that mark as the last thing he saw as she raised her arms against him before he brought the butt of his gun down on her head.(2)

This remark and the subsequent narrative focus on Evie’s ‘independence’ offers a completely novel – and indeed controversial – way of allegorising the history of post-colonial Zimbabwe. Rheam risks serious censure in choosing to compose such a symbolic narrative from the perspective of its historically privileged, yet increasingly embattled, white suburban population. Judged against the quality of what follows it is, to my mind at any rate, a justified gambit.

With a nod, perhaps, to the renowned South African writer J.M. Coetzee, Rheam creates a memoirist in her own image. Though not as felicitous or compact as Coetzee’s ‘memoirs’, through this writerly conceit Rheam explores to compelling effect the secretive and self-absorbed world of a minority culture she was born into yet is unsure if she wants to belong.

The book is divided into three parts. Ellie’s attempt to banish family ghosts through the act of writing – the framing ‘now’ of the book – is the motivation for recording the memories of her formative years in the first part of the book. This section deals with events and themes typical of the bildungsroman genre: innocence, in time-honoured fashion, cedes painfully to experience. The emotional maelstrom of youth – in particular of coming to terms with being, In Coetzee’s famous phrase, ‘no longer European, not yet African’ – is affectingly conveyed.

There is a marked change in tone and pace in the second and third parts of the novel, corresponding to Ellie’s discovery of different batches of her murdered grandmother’s letters. The discoveries enable Ellie to cut through the veils of secrecy that shrouded her childhood. Transcribing the letters, Ellie reassembles her grandmother’s life story – quite self-consciously – as a hybrid narrative: part romance, part mystery. Most importantly, we learn of an affair started in the 1940s, which had a profound, albeit hidden, impact on family life for the next half a century.

In uncovering the secret life of her grandmother in this way, Ellie also embarks on a journey, which leads to the gradual discovery of her own, complex, post-colonial identity. Unlike the romantic mystery she wants to write, however, Ellie finds that the uncomfortable truths she discovers deny resolution to this deeper mystery: ‘I stop writing. Is it all too personal, too subjective, too me?’ (89) Yet by continuing to write – by confronting and so coming to terms with the past – Ellie is able finally to envisage returning to Africa. ‘“See Zimbabwe for what it is,” her Zimbabwean suitor Tony implores, “not as some failed annex of 1950s Britain. People carry on living ... Write a different story, Ellie.” His voice was suddenly soft, the anger subsiding. “A different ending, at least.”’(358)

And so the novel does end with a resolution, and in both senses of the word: ‘I don’t want to have a Rhodesian flag up in my living room and I don’t want to write the memoirs of my African childhood. I don’t want to live in the past.’(359). To no longer be haunted by the past – to live fully in the present – it seems Ellie must first confront and demystify it. While other reviewers will no doubt take issue with her exclusive focus on white Zimbabwean society in September Sun, I would argue that by presenting us with characters from this minority with whom we can empathise as well as criticise, Bryony Rheam takes a bold but necessary step toward exorcising the ghost of Rhodesia from the house of Zimbabwean letters.

James Graham
James Graham is a lecturer at Middlesex University and the author of Land and Nationalism in Fictions from Southern Africa (Routledge, 2009).

African Roar: A new eclectic fiction anthology of African writers

"African Roar is a fiction anthology drawn from the very best stories published from 2007-2009, in the StoryTime weekly literary ezine dedicated to publishing African writers. Between these covers you will find eleven stories that stand as a testament to the upsurge of talented African writers boldly utilising the cutting edge of technology and the writing craft to be read globally. Spanning Africa and the African Diaspora in past, present and future, each story has a fresh and diverse vision that opens up new vistas of experience. From the lucid terrors of domestic violence through the eyes of a child, and the anguish of those left behind by a fleeing Diaspora, to a full circle, when the prey becomes the hunter and has the opportunity for revenge, and a dryly humorous look at what it's like to lose a quarter of your brain, to name just a few of the treasures that lie within. Edited by Emmanuel Sigauke & Ivor W. Hartmann." - Back cover description of African Roar.

African Roar is a fiction anthology initially drawn from the very best stories published from 2007-2009, in the StoryTime weekly literary ezine dedicated to publishing African writers. Each story then went through a further eight months of rigorous editing with the authors and co-editors to ensure their highest potential, and are now only available in the anthology.

African Roar features short fiction from the Zimbabwean writers: Beaven Tapureta, Christopher Mlalazi, Emmanuel Sigauke, Ivor W. Hartmann, Masimba Musodza, and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma. The Nigerian writers: Ayodele Morocco-Clarke, Chuma Nwokolo Jr., and Kola Tubosun. The Ghanaian writers: Ayesha Harruna Attah and Nana A. Damoah.

This is the first in what will be an annual anthology release.

African Roar is currently available (worldwide) to buy online at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Barnes &Noble. An eBook edition is also available through the Kindle platform (worldwide) for iPad, Kindle, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry and PC.

There are also negotiations under-way with various publishers in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Nigeria to see it locally published and distributed in Africa.

The official website is African Roar and the facebook page African Roar.

MEMORIAL READINGS FOR MUPFUDZA LIKELY

The late Stanley Ruzvidzo Mupfudza

A reading event to commemorate the late Stanley Ruzvidzo Mupfudza (writer , teacher and journalist) – pictured above, is likely to take place sometime next month in Harare. In May, a group of writing friends led by author and academic Memory Chirere (http://memorychirere.blogspot.com/2010/05/ruzvidzo-stanley-mupfudza-obituary-by-html) , who is also one of Mupfudza’s contemporaries, met at the National Art Gallery to deliberate on how and when the event should take place. The group also visited Mupfudza’s residence in Southerton.

Activities will include readings of his works and testimonies from those who worked with him. A brief documentary is also likely to be produced out of this memorial.

BRIEF RAISON D'ÊTRE OF WIN-ZIMBABWE

(Director’s Desk)

Why network?

Removing communication barriers and all other kinds of barriers/ reaching out to the marginalized but talented writers groups/ creating a sense of solidarity

We note that networking, just as I am doing right now with you the reader, solve misunderstandings, disagreements, but also bring divergence of literary opinions and methods of doing things.

Writers International Network Zimbabwe believes there are many ways of networking as writers, these include

§ Sharing resources and information

§ Working together on one project

§ Supporting one another morally or otherwise

This is the underlying principle of Win-Zimbabwe, please do not hesitate to share with us your ideas. Email: winzimbabwe@gmail.com

TO LIFT OR NOT LIFT THE WORLD CUP

The world’s greatest footballers are in town (Africa) in the middle of unprecedented mania of African pride. Known decades ago as the Dark Continent by some historians Africa today takes another step forward into the global limelight, hosting the biggest ever-sporting event in Africa. Despite the gravel and bumps along its road to total independence, Mama Africa has risen once again, generously raising her dish higher for the world to appease their cultural appetites and survive. For a moment, thousands of soccer fans in South Africa and millions more at home around the world will experience African sport, arts, and culture at close range. What this 2010 soccer extravaganza has done– inasmuch fashion as the Obama-mania did – is to remind us that the continent is still part of the world, and has potential to host the world in all sectors of human life. June/July 2010 is an unforgettable season when those dream-seeds continue to germinate, richly fed by the African nutrients of undying quest for respect, love, unity, and peace. The Golden Cup is in town. Today, Africa screams the vuvuzela song out to the highest mountains of the world. Today and forever, may nothing hold back the song, the song of Africa, our motherland, our world.