Harare Review of Books

160 pages.

Published March 7, 2023 (University Press of Kentucky)

Speculative Fiction anthology.

I loved this phenomenal collection of stories with a speculative twist from Zimbabwean-born writer, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu. Many of these stories have been published before in various places, but this is the first time they’ve been brought together in one volume.

Ndlovu imbues her stories with a flavour of Zimbabwean experience, with subplots of hyperinflation, power cuts, fuel shortages, the liberation war, and Zimbabwe’s troubled political history. Mixed in with all of that—which would read as speculative fiction anyway, to most people—are disappearing homes, a shape-shifting praying mantis fighting on the side of Zimbabwe’s liberation fighters, carnivorous ants, various gods, magical turtle hearts that confer near-immortality, and njuzu, the Zimbabwean conception of mermaids. I also loved some of the themes Ndlovu introduced to wider audiences: African science including ngozi, wife-locking and similar used for revenge; women who travel by night in winnowing baskets; why many Black people carefully dispose of their hair and never pick up money they find on the ground; and an African conception of time (not future-facing, but going backwards, into the past).

Ndlovu also does not hold back on social commentary. Black Tax is the theme of Ugly Hamsters: A Triptych. “Tradition” is used to deprive widows of marital property in several stories. The idea of Zimbabwe’s Marange diamonds as blood diamonds is approached from a speculative perspective, with a monster trapping amakorokoza (artisanal miners) underground for not paying tolls, but thereby enriching, through a greedy government, a bunch of capitalists. Gusheshe is a thinly-veiled story about the abduction of a famous comedian in Zimbabwe. The experiences of young girls and young women—including the horrors of virginity testing, and a form of female genital mutilation practised in this part of the world—are explored in short passages in Plumtree: True Stories. The despair of the poor (and a quiet commentary on Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina of 2005, which destroyed homes) is the focus of the title story, Drinking from Graveyard Wells. I was moved nearly to tears by Home Became a Thing With Thorns, in which Ndlovu explores the experience of Zimbabwean migrants (set in South Africa, but could apply to any migrant anywhere) losing parts of themselves in order to gain recognition in their new country.

In all, this is an astonishing, enjoyable, and expansive collection. It is a lamentation with enormous heart. Ndlovu is a supremely talented author, a new star in the already crowded firmament of excellent Zimbabwean writers. I look forward to much more from her, and highly recommend this anthology.

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