Viewing Zimbabwean literature through an Africana womanist lens: a critical reading of selected texts to investigate Charles Mungoshi’s treatment of African women in Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuwa and Waiting for the Rain

The overarching theme of the critical and creative aspects of this thesis is women’s agency in precolonial and colonial Zimbabwe. The critical component offers a reading of Charles Mungoshi’s two books Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuwa (1975) and Waiting for the Rain (1975), and analyses the characteristics attributed to Mungoshi’s female characters. Africana womanist theory provides a framework which it argues mainstream feminism fails to address the deep meaning of African culture (Hudson-Weems, 1997). In particular, the critical component focuses on Mungoshi’s two novels and the extent to which his female characters exhibit characteristics that afford them agency. Mungoshi’s writing echoes the conditions prevalent in the country at that juncture complicating the reading as it navigates colonial patriarchy. The youngest, adolescent and teenage female characters have the least amount of agency provoking a discussion about the teenage daughter/father power dynamics typical of Black households (Boehmer, 2009), and how the political environment oppresses them further. The discussion is enriched by comparisons of feminist and womanist perceptions of ‘Mother Africa’ tropes prevalent in African male writing. The creative component draws on these findings to produce a novel with an Afrocentric perspective that reveals African women in a colonial context. The female protagonist, Zwi/Mazvitreni, is empowered by some of the eighteen tenets of Africana womanism to navigate her changing environment in response to colonialism and evangelism. Ambrose, a colonial administrator, and Eugene, a Christian missionary are the two antagonists. The novel, Zwi is set in the late nineteenth century after the establishment of small British settlements and their first conflict with the indigenous people. Africana womanist traits are identified in Mungoshi’s female characters despite the fact Africana womanist theory came into existence a decade after his books were published. This research contributes an Afrocentric focus to literary practice in the expanding Africana womanist literature through its use in literary fiction about Black women.

CREATIVE PRACTICE - A Novel: Zwi

The creative practice component of this thesis is under indefinite embargo.