Masimba Musodza
| Book Review: Fiction |
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Masimba Musodza is a Zimbabwean author and
screenwriter. His short stories have appeared on the
Story Time e-zine, with two being selected for
consecutive editions of the print anthology African Roar.
He has published an anthology, The Man who turned
into a Rastafarian and a detective novel, Uriah's
Vengeance. A new novel in ChiShona is to be published
in February. Musodza lives in the Yorkshire town of
Middlesbrough.
screenwriter. His short stories have appeared on the
Story Time e-zine, with two being selected for
consecutive editions of the print anthology African Roar.
He has published an anthology, The Man who turned
into a Rastafarian and a detective novel, Uriah's
Vengeance. A new novel in ChiShona is to be published
in February. Musodza lives in the Yorkshire town of
Middlesbrough.
Amelia’s Inheritance, a novel by Sarudzai Mabvakure
Paperback 204pp, Lion Press.
Reviewed by Masimba Musodza
Zimbabweans are picky readers and even pickier book-buyers. Who can blame us,
considering that a considerable portion of the literature that has been churned out over the
last two decades has been about the Chimurenga or the more recent political conflict? In a
country where professionals earn $100 a month, who really wants to spend $10 on a book
about how bad Rhodesia was or how repressive the present regime is? We know all that
already.
How refreshing then to come across Sarudzayi Mubvakure’s second and latest literary
offering, Amelia’s Inheritance! Set mostly in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, this is the story of
Amelia Gruber, the daughter of a German immigrant man and a mixed-race woman of
unknown parentage, who had been raised as an orphan. As a child, her peers mark her as
an outcast, and perhaps this pushes her from the psychological and social fortress the
White settlers built around themselves and allows her a glimpse of the rest of the world.
Her father loses his wealth and dies a broken man, leaving the family to cope as best as
they can as one of Rhodesia’s best kept secrets; the Poor Whites. Amelia’s mother loses
her mind, and her younger sister elopes leaving Amelia to hold on to precious little else.
Sisi, their maid, stays with her.
Speaking of secrets, boy are there plenty! The people she meets along the way seem to
know a lot more about her past than they should, and it seems less and less a coincidence
that they have come in to her life. Amelia is also learning about the wider world, she is
crossing the racial and social barriers of Rhodesia. She makes friends with a Black
activist. Through their relationship, we are reminded of a fact that doesn’t seem to get
mention by other writers; that the dispossession of indigenous Black people’s lands by
White Settlers did not end with the Pioneer Column but continued well in to the last days
of that ignoble racist political system. Like I noted, Mubvakure doesn’t take up too much
prose telling us what we know already. In a suspense-filled, pacy narrative, Amelia
becomes part of the process to break down those barriers and the secrets of her past
become unlocked in a stunning conclusion.
Mubvakure has marked her own territory on the Zimbabwean literary landscape. Amelia’s
Inheritance reminds me of Dickens’ Great Expectations, Oliver Twist etc in that she has a
hero whose circumstances are set to change as the mystery of their past unfolds.
However, despite her many shortcomings, the most glaring being her poverty and the
breakdown of her family, Amelia is hardly a passive subject to the whims of fate. And
there may be a bit of Catherine Cookson in the style, too. But Mubvakure’s style is original
and establishes her as one of the most exciting new authors on the scene.
Paperback 204pp, Lion Press.
Reviewed by Masimba Musodza
Zimbabweans are picky readers and even pickier book-buyers. Who can blame us,
considering that a considerable portion of the literature that has been churned out over the
last two decades has been about the Chimurenga or the more recent political conflict? In a
country where professionals earn $100 a month, who really wants to spend $10 on a book
about how bad Rhodesia was or how repressive the present regime is? We know all that
already.
How refreshing then to come across Sarudzayi Mubvakure’s second and latest literary
offering, Amelia’s Inheritance! Set mostly in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia, this is the story of
Amelia Gruber, the daughter of a German immigrant man and a mixed-race woman of
unknown parentage, who had been raised as an orphan. As a child, her peers mark her as
an outcast, and perhaps this pushes her from the psychological and social fortress the
White settlers built around themselves and allows her a glimpse of the rest of the world.
Her father loses his wealth and dies a broken man, leaving the family to cope as best as
they can as one of Rhodesia’s best kept secrets; the Poor Whites. Amelia’s mother loses
her mind, and her younger sister elopes leaving Amelia to hold on to precious little else.
Sisi, their maid, stays with her.
Speaking of secrets, boy are there plenty! The people she meets along the way seem to
know a lot more about her past than they should, and it seems less and less a coincidence
that they have come in to her life. Amelia is also learning about the wider world, she is
crossing the racial and social barriers of Rhodesia. She makes friends with a Black
activist. Through their relationship, we are reminded of a fact that doesn’t seem to get
mention by other writers; that the dispossession of indigenous Black people’s lands by
White Settlers did not end with the Pioneer Column but continued well in to the last days
of that ignoble racist political system. Like I noted, Mubvakure doesn’t take up too much
prose telling us what we know already. In a suspense-filled, pacy narrative, Amelia
becomes part of the process to break down those barriers and the secrets of her past
become unlocked in a stunning conclusion.
Mubvakure has marked her own territory on the Zimbabwean literary landscape. Amelia’s
Inheritance reminds me of Dickens’ Great Expectations, Oliver Twist etc in that she has a
hero whose circumstances are set to change as the mystery of their past unfolds.
However, despite her many shortcomings, the most glaring being her poverty and the
breakdown of her family, Amelia is hardly a passive subject to the whims of fate. And
there may be a bit of Catherine Cookson in the style, too. But Mubvakure’s style is original
and establishes her as one of the most exciting new authors on the scene.
