Junctions

Daniel Mandishona

Description

Junctions is Daniel Mandishona�s second collection of short stories, following White Gods Black Demons (Weaver Press, 2009). Again, he quarries the richness and variety of Zimbabwean lives to deliver characters and narratives spanning the social spectrum: political ambition and violence; beggars on city streets; family disputes at funerals; rural journeys peppered with mishaps; corrupt policemen and born-again prophets; bus accidents, and township tailors. But if his subjects reect grim realities, Mandishona�s treatment of his characters is achieved with a wonderful sardonic irony, capacious enough to give even the worst offenders a large humanity. The book concludes with Edmore Chidzonga, an unemployed graduate, reflecting on the new dispensation promised by the 2017 change of national leadership: He remembered how his late grandfather often told him that tsuro haipone rutsva kaviri; a hare can only escape a bush re once. He had spent six years protesting. � For the first time, he felt he had no future.

Informations

• Publié par: Weaver Press
• Date de parution: 09 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781779223449
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

First published by Weaver Press, Box A1922, Avondale, Harare, 2018 < www.weaverpresszimbabwe.com >
© Daniel Mandishona 2018
Typeset by Weaver Press
Cover Design: Daniel Mandishona, Jr.
Photo (p.v) © Weaver Press
Printed by Running Rat, Harare
Distributed in South Africa by Jacana Media, Johannesburg
All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-77922-343-2 (p/b) ISBN: 978-1-77922-344-9 (e-pub)
D ANIEL M ANDISHONA is an architect. He was born in Harare in 1959 and brought up by his maternal grandparents in Mbare township (then known as Harari township). In 1976 he was expelled from Goromonzi Secondary School and lived in London from 1977-1992. He first studied Graphic Design then Architecture at the Bartlett School, University College London. He now has his own practice in Harare. His first short story, ‘A Wasted Land’ was published in Contemporary African Short Stories (Heinemann,1992). He has since been published by Weaver Press in Writing Now (2005), Laughing Now (2007) Writing Free (2011) and Writing Lives (2014). He also published a collection of short stories, W hite Gods. Black Demons (Weaver Press, 2009).
Contents
Prologue – Butterflies in the Rain
1. Of Heroes and Paupers
2. The Day Morgan Died
3. Fall of Man
4. Hallelujah Kingdom
5. Crossroads
6. Providence
7. Things I Thought You Should Know
8. The New Dispensation
Epilogue – Fallen Kingdom
Butterflies in the Rain
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
21 st March, 2008
It was a week before the end of the first term. Schools were to be closed early to allow teachers to be employed as polling agents in the forthcoming election. The heavy downpour had stopped as abruptly as it had begun. A rainbow straddled the distant horizon, its colours diffused by the soft glow of sunset. Anxious not to soil their shoes and khaki uniforms, Robert and Nhamo Muswe hopped, skipped and jumped over the puddles of brown water along the narrow path. Robert, at thirteen, was two years older than his brother. Their best friends, the Makupa boys – Sylvester, Noah and Martin – had not been to school since the previous week, which was unusual. There had been an outbreak of mumps at their school, and Robert and Nhamo wondered if the Makupa boys had become the latest victims.
Robert suggested to Nhamo that they take a detour and go and check on the boys at their home, about two kilometres from their own. Nhamo was uncomfortable with the idea, remembering how their widowed mother had told them to come straight home after school each day.
‘We’ll tell her we were catching butterflies in the rain for the Nature Study lessons,’ said Robert.
Reluctantly, Nhamo nodded his head. He knew it was not a good idea to disobey their strict mother, but he had faith in his elder brother as they often did their mischief together. Robert was jealously protective of his brother, a slow learner who suffered from albinism, and always stood up for him in times of crisis.
The election was several days away but there had been several cases of politically motivated violence in the neighbouring villages, which was the reason why their mother worried about them staying out late. Although tender in years, the boys had already experienced the trauma caused by political strife. A year previously their own father, Orgreave Muswe, had been killed during an altercation at the local business centre. There had been numerous witnesses to the incident, but nobody had ever been charged with the crime. At a rally for the ruling party held at their school the previous month, Sly’s father, Lazarus Makupa, had been denounced by the village headman for being a ‘sell-out’ and for secretly supporting the opposition party. The violence had jarred the tranquillity of the Muswe boys’ rural lives.
Aware there was still about an hour of daylight, the two boys started walking in Indian file in the direction of the Makupa homestead. Nhamo, who liked showing off, started reciting a poem his Grade Five class had learnt that day during the English lesson.
‘ Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe... ’
Robert tried to catch some butterflies, to justify their expected late arrival home.