By Mbongen Z. Malaba, Geoffrey V. Davis

This selection of essays on Zimbabwean literature brings jointly experiences of either Rhodesian and Zimbabwean literature, spanning diverse languages and genres. It charts the every now and then painful strategy of the evolution of Rhodesian/ Zimbabwean identities that was once formed through pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial realities. The hybrid nature of the society emerges as diverse writers endeavour to make experience in their global. essays specialize in the literature of the white settler. the 1st distils the essence of white settlers' alienation from the Africa they purport to civilize, revealing the delusional fixations of the racist frame of mind that permeates the discourse of the "white man's burden" in imperial narratives. the second one takes up the topic of alienation present in settler discourse, displaying how the cave in of the white supremacists' dream while southern African international locations received independence left many settlers stuck up in a profound id trouble. 4 essays are dedicated to Ndebele writing. They specialise in the compliment poetry composed for kings Mzilikazi and Lobengula; the preponderance of ancient subject matters in Ndebele literature; the hindrance that lies on the center of the fashionable Ndebele identification; and the fossilized perspectives on gender roles present in the works of prime Ndebele novelists, either male and female. The essays on English-language writing chart the predominantly unfavourable view of ladies present in the fiction of Stanley Nyamfukudza, verify the destabilization of masculine identities in post-colonial Zimbabwe, assessment the complicated imaginative and prescient of existence and "reality" in Charles Mungoshi's brief tales as exemplified within the tragic isolation of lots of his protagonists, and discover Dambudzo Marechera's obsession with remoted, threatened participants in his hitherto commonly overlooked dramas. the improvement of Shona writing is surveyed in articles: the 1st strains its improvement from its origins as a colonial academic device to the extra serious works of the post-1980 independence part; the second one turns the highlight on written drama from 1968 whilst performs appeared divorced from the standard realities of people's lives to more moderen paintings which engages with corruption and the perversion of the ethical order. the amount additionally contains an illuminating interview with Irene Staunton, the previous writer of Baobab Books and now of Weaver Press.