The Nucleation of White Zimbabwean Writing

Tagwirei, Cuthbeth

doi:10.1080/02564718.2016.1235377

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…My focus is drawn to these critics because of the complex and contradictory ways in which their works are implicated in the development of both the Black Zimbabwean novel and its criticism. By exploring the ways in which the selected critics may be said to be grounded in the Eurocentric framework, I avoid relying on categories such as White/European, given that these are identities that promote “false unities and uniformities” (Tagwirei, 2016, p. 5) which “proscribe the space for dialogic contestation” (Tagwirei, 2016, p. 12). Veit-Wild and Primorac also attract scholarly attention because both have written and published extensively on the Black Zimbabwean novel (Primorac, 2001, 2005, 2006; Veit-Wild, 1992a, 1992b, 1993, 1999, 2006) but not much research has been done on their scholarship, except Vambe’s (2005) discussion of Veit-Wild’s reliance of the sociohistorical approach in her exploration of aspects of the Black Zimbabwean literary corpus.…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universal, Normative, and Indispensable: Exploring the Emphasis on Eurocentric Literary-Critical Perspectives in the Criticism of the Black Zimbabwean Novel

Gwekwerere

2018

Journal of Black Studies

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Literary-critical discourse on the Black Zimbabwean novel constitutes one of several platforms on which the self-other dialectic in Zimbabwe finds expression. This is especially the case at the level of literary-critical theory where the tendency is to advance arguments that frame Afrocentric and Eurocentric literary-critical theories as mutually exclusive. In this article, I explore the scholarship of Flora Veit-Wild and Ranka Primorac on the Black Zimbabwean novel with a view to discoursing the ways in which it can be argued that in their discussion of the corpus, the two scholars are anchored in the Eurocentric framework. In pursuing this objective, I focus on the critics' reliance on Eurocentric literary-critical theories and apparent discomfiture with Afrocentric benchmarks in their criticism of the Black Zimbabwean novel. Thus, I argue in this article that while the version of critical discourse discussed here speaks to the complex and contradictory ways in which cultures find places of translation and dialogic engagement where history is made, the overall impression created by Veit-Wild and Primorac in their criticism of the Black Zimbabwean novel is that Eurocentric perspectives are universal, normative, and indispensable.

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Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universal, Normative, and Indispensable: Exploring the Emphasis on Eurocentric Literary-Critical Perspectives in the Criticism of the Black Zimbabwean Novel

Gwekwerere

2018

Journal of Black Studies

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“…Most of the literary-critical scholarship on land reform in post-2000 Zimbabwe prioritizes texts written by black Zimbabweans (Gonye, Moyo, & Wasosa, 2012; Makombe, 2014; Manase, 2014; Nyambi, 2015, 2016, 2017). In the isolated instances where literary-critical scholarship on land reform in post-2000 Zimbabwe digresses toward narratives written by white Zimbabweans (Manase, 2011; Misi, 2016; Tagwirei, 2016), the tendency is to argue that white Zimbabweans have been victimized and excluded in post-2000 Zimbabwe. The legitimacy of this contention cannot be denied, given the emphasis that the ZANU-PF regime applied on the FTLRP as “the country’s third and final war (Third Chimurenga) against residual colonial influences and Euro-American imperial control of the country’s land and other natural and economic resources” (Manase, 2014, p. 6).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists: White Authors and the Fast Track Land Reform Program in Post-2000 Zimbabwe

Gwekwerere

Mutasa

Chitofiri

2017

Journal of Black Studies

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Texts written by some white Zimbabweans in the post-2000 dispensation are largely shaped by their authors' endeavor to contest the loss of lands they held prior to the onset of the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP). Written as memoirs, these texts are bound by the tendency to fall back on colonial settler values, Rhodesian identities, and Hegelian supremacist ideas in their narration of aspects of a conflict in which tropes such as truth, justice, patriotism, and belonging were not only evoked but also reframed. This article explores manifestations of this tendency in Eric Harrison's Jambanja (2006) and Jim Barker's Paradise Plundered: The Story of a Zimbabwean Farm (2007). The discussion unfolds against the backdrop of the realization that much of the literary-critical scholarship on land reform in post-2000 Zimbabwe focuses on texts written by black Zimbabweans and does not attend to the panoply of ways in which some white-authored texts yearn for colonial structures of

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Heteroglossia and the Destabilisation of Authorial Voice in Bruce Moore-King’sWhite Man Black War

Tagwirei

2019

Journal of Literary Studies

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The Nucleation of White Zimbabwean Writing

Cited by 6 publications

References 6 publications

Universal, Normative, and Indispensable: Exploring the Emphasis on Eurocentric Literary-Critical Perspectives in the Criticism of the Black Zimbabwean Novel

Universal, Normative, and Indispensable: Exploring the Emphasis on Eurocentric Literary-Critical Perspectives in the Criticism of the Black Zimbabwean Novel

Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists: White Authors and the Fast Track Land Reform Program in Post-2000 Zimbabwe

Heteroglossia and the Destabilisation of Authorial Voice in Bruce Moore-King’sWhite Man Black War

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