:
Congratulations on your Immigration Novel, Harare North.
How difficult was it to write? In particular, will friends and
acquaintances be skimming your pages in search of reflections of
themselves?
Brian Chikwava: Thanks, and yes,
it was difficult - in fact painful. At one stage, the whole project
seemed like the most foolish decision I've ever taken. And regarding
reflections of myself, I suppose the narrator's madness is a reflection
of how writing the book was driving me up the wall.
:
Your narrator is unnamed. Do you have a high octane
reason for not naming him? Or were you simply unable to decide between
two potential names?
BC: The narrator is unnamed because he
is a dissociated voice.
:
And yet, he is the most finely drawn character in
your book.
When he goes off the rail I was profoundly affected. Your book
draws attention to the statistics that Black men are over-represented,
relative to their overall�population, in British jails and mental
asylums. Did you find similar stories when you were researching
Harare North? Are these two destinations (the jailhouse and the
madhouse)�real dangers for potential immigrants of a certain race
heading for the West?
BC:�Often one gets knocked off centre and then has to struggle to bring oneself
back into kilter. I would like to think that is the price of being
an acceptable member of any society. It's hard enough in a familiar
cultural environment, doubly so in an alien environment. This maybe,
explains the disproportionate number of Africans and Afro-Caribbeans
in mental institutions. And yes, while working on the book, I did
reflect at length on the high numbers of people of that heritage
being sectioned. I am no expert in this but I believe that with
the number of�Africans and Afro-Caribbeans a different set of factors
may be playing a role. In conclusion I'd say yes, mental health
issues and jail are a potential danger for anyone who has been uprooted
into exile, irrespective of race. As they say, exile mimics depression
and vice versa.
:
Do you think that the fact that your narrator
is unnamed makes it that much easier for many of your readers in
'Harare North' to see themselves in his shoes, locked in
his quandaries?
BC: I can only hope it does, I
couldn't honestly say. I never thought much about the reader until
I had finished the book. That's because I was going through a steep
learning curve and the whole process required so much of me I could
not hope to think about the expectations or demands of potential
readers without losing the plot altogether. What I can say though,
in retrospect, is that with the first person narrative it is easier
to lock the reader into a character's mind. Can be horrible sometimes!
: In
Harare North, our unnamed narrator arrives at his cousin's
house in London to meet a man far more hostile than his letters
home suggested, whose wife was lacking in all the usual Zimbabwean
hospitalities... In real life, is this a�fair reflection of the�impact
of the immigrant experience on cultural generosities?�
�
BC:�I would like to think that, in the big city, cultural
generosities cost time and money, the two things that the big city
dweller is perpetually short of. So perhaps it's understandable
when they dispense with some things that are of intangible utility.�
:
Did you have any specific inspiration for Harare
North?
BC: I was lucky that at a stage
before the novel gelled into anything meaningful I met a Ugandan
in Brixton, started chatting and he turned out to be a former member
of Lord's Resistance Army. Interestingly, he was unchanged by the
5 years that had passed since he fled Uganda, and still missed Joseph
Kone. He seemed pretty unreconstructed if not unreconstructable
and I found him intriguing and hilarious. Soon after that encounter
my novel crystallised quickly.
:
So there is a sense in which your novel was
actually born in Brixton! Quite a few London natives who have lived
in that city all their lives will not recognise the London of your
debut novel. How easy is it to live in bubbles, in the midst of
present day 'multiculturalisms'?
�
Yes, the novel is very much a result of living in Brixton. What
I find interesting about the place is that it one of those places
where anyone from any cultural background can easily blend in. In
that sense it is very multicultural and offers endless possibilities
for any imagination.
:
You made your literary 'debut' with your Caine prize
win for�the short story, 7th Street Alchemy. You have now
published your well-received novel, Harare North. Are you
a short story writer having a fling with the novel? Or have you
moved on? What other projects have you on the boil?
BC: I feel more like a vagrant, at turns,
masquerading as a short story writer, novelist or musician. �I can
not honestly say I'm this or that without immediately feeling like
a charlatan.
:
Your music is obviously an important part of who
you are. Tell me about this side of you.
BC: Yes, I suppose music is important as
a refuge during those times when I can't even string a single sentence
together. That's when I start thinking that I'm actually more of
a musician than a writer. - That's until I start doing music with
people who insist on using a score. But since I can't read music
and only play it by the ear, this triggers all kinds of insecurities
and then, I start thinking I'm actually a writer and not a musician.�
:
A couple of years ago you contributed a political
article to AW's debut issue: Writing the Story of Zimbabwe.
At that time it was not concievable that Mugabe and his arch rival,
Tsvangirai could ever share a government. Is this 'thinking outside
the box' or�has the opposition boxed themselves in?
BC: I was optimistic towards the
end of last year when the idea of the power sharing gvt came into
being, at least on paper. Also a lot of people in Zim had high hopes.
Since then it's been a mixed bag, in my humble opinion. I understand
that now supermarkets are better stocked than they were a few months
ago. That's a good start.
But in terms of building a democratic
tradition for a nation as young as Zimbabwe I find it hard to be
positive. The African solution as mediated by the�South Africans�ultimately
made the loser the winner. That's a bad starting point. Also the
opposition did not do themselves any favours by failing to leverage
anything out of the deal through using the masses. As a result when
they were leaned on during the negotiations, the South Africans
- the chief mediators - may have been aware that Morgan and his
lieutenants had allowed themselvesto drift from the, by then, fatigued
and disinterested ordinary citizen and were increasingly negotiating
for themselves as a clique as opposed to representating the people.
May be green shoots will start to appear in the future but right
now a lengthy and messy war of attrition may have started. I'm not
sure the people with the best interests of country at heart will
be able to outmanoeuvre some of the dark angels flitting about in
the night. But there is hope. Worth praying for even if you don't
believe in God.
: Any
pet hates?
BC: I hate being short - everyone
looks down at you.�
: Favourite
causes?
BC: My favourite cause is to defy
online social networks!
: Do
you enjoy the process of writing? Have you started a new
writing project? A new novel?
BC: Only in retrospect. Which may explain
why I'm not so keen to chain myself to the desk yet again.
:
I like the earthy wisdom of Harare North's narrator.
He deploys sayings like:
That's because money is like termite;
you don't catch it by its head as it try to come out of its hole
otherwise it go back and disappear. You just let it come out in
the open and soon it is crawling all over the counter.
Are these sayings in common usage, or did you
fashion them for this character?
�
BC: No, they are not that much used and I've also
had to rework them a bit. Like, the one that you have picked - it
comes from a Ndebele proverb but I had to extend it into a simile
and use a termite in place of a flying ant - inhlwa - which
sheds its wings after a while and go into the earth.�
:
Is�the cultural treasury for Harare North more Ndebele
than Shona, or is it a mixed grill?
BC: Oh, it's a completely mixed
grill!
:
You have lived in London for a few years. Have you
put down roots in Harare North? Or�do you still return, will you
still return, to the�real Harare?
BC: I think I will try to be rootless
for a while, if I can manage it. Putting down roots shuts all other
options, which can be frightening. Maybe only after I've acquired
a passport from the UK, Japan, China, Spain and Peru will I be ready
to make a choice.
:
When you finally acquire a foreign passport, can you continue
to moral justify the extent of your creative engagement with Zimbabwean
politics and circumstances. Should Brown, rather than Mugabe not
then become the predilection of your fiction? ... roots in other
words?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that positioning oneself
globally can be interesting for your writing. And no because sometimes
it's a matter of pragmatism - waving an African passport at an immigration
officer in the world tends to triggers all manner of fights. Sometimes
even when you land at an African country.
:
Any favourite novels or novelists?
�
BC: I am very drawn to Sembene but not just for
his writing but his other works such as film. Stylistically speaking,
he's my favourite. |