Introduction -- Zimbabwean Mobility Dynamics in the Twenty-First Century -- Spatial Orders and Mobility in a Shifting National Landscape -- The Chronotope of the Third Chimurenga -- The Interplay between Mobility and Stasis -- Intra-Urban Mobilities -- "Everything moved at a frenzied pace": Movement and Stasis in Valerie Tagwira's The Uncertainty of Hope (2006) -- Leaving Paradise: Inner-City Movement and Transnational Encounters in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names (2013) -- Unexpected Mobilities in the Madhouse: Shimmer Chinodya's Chairman of Fools (2005) -- Rural-Urban Dynamics -- Uncomfortable Pasts and Diseased Modernities: Shimmer Chinodya's Strife (2006) -- An Internal Mass Migration: The Resettlement Process in Lawrence Hoba's The Trek and Other Stories (2009) -- Travelling Bones, Troubling Pasts: Graham Lang's Place of Birth (2006) -- Transnational Migrations Between Zimbabwe and South Africa -- Border Jumping to "Harare South": Christopher Mlalazi's The Border Jumper -- Migration and entrapment: Ian Holdiing's Of Beasts & Beings (2010) -- Transcontinental Migrations to the West -- Rattling Heads and Haunted Houses: Travelling Ideological Topographies in Brian Chikwava's Harare North (2009) -- Necessary Illusions? Moving Beyond Crisis in Tendai Huchu's The Maestro, the Magistrate, and the Mathematician (2015) -- Conclusion.
Summary:
"This monograph explores the concept of mobility in Zimbabwean works of fiction published in English between the introduction of the controversial Fast Track Land Reform Programme and the end of the Mugabe era. Since 2000, Zimbabwe has experienced unprecedented levels of transnational out-migration in response to the political conflicts and economic downturn often referred to as the Zimbabwe Crisis. This in turn has led to an increased outpouring of literary texts about migration, both in locally produced texts and in works by authors based in the diaspora. Situating Zimbabwe's recent literary developments in a wider context of Southern African writing and history, this book focuses on texts which portray movement within Zimbabwe's cities, between village and city, to South Africa, and overseas. The author examines important developments and trends in recent Zimbabwean literature, investigating the link between state authoritarianism and control of mobility, and literature's potential to intervene into dominant political discourses. The book includes in-depth analyses of ten recent works of fiction published in the post-2000 era and develops mobility as a key category of literary analysis of Zimbabwe's contemporary literatures. Setting out a rich dialogue between literary criticism and mobility studies, this book will be of interest to researchers of African Literature, Southern Africa, migration and mobility"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.