Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Fiction of Yvonne Vera (review)

This is the first collection of critical essays on Zimbabwe’s foremost female writer, described as ‘the most important African novelist to have emerged during the 1990s’. Robert Muponde and Mandi Taruvinga’s impressive collection has put Vera on the map of African literary studies. They note, ‘The greatest challenge will … be to keep pace with the impulses of such a powerful imagination.’ Sadly, Vera’s life was brought to an abrupt end by AIDS in 2005, aged just forty and at her peak. However, she leaves a rich oeuvre of five novels, Nehanda, Without a Name, Under the Tongue, Butterfly Burning, and The Stone Virgins, and a collection of short stories, Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals? Bold heroines and brave victims are Vera’s characters. Child abuse, rape, incest, abortion, infanticide, prostitution and atrocity are the taboo topics; Zimbabwe’s traumatic history is her canvas.

The contributors show how Vera has expanded the formal possibilities of the African novel by giving the experiences of women a centrality: ‘Language, voice and presence in Under the Tongue and Without a Name’ is Kizito Muchemwa’s eloquent contribution. Two important chapters, “‘A River in my Mouth”: writing the voice in Under the Tongue’ and ‘Re-membering the body: rape and recovery in Without a Name and Under the Tongue’ are insightfully written by Meg Samuelson. ‘The habit of assigning meaning: signs of Vera’s world’ and ‘A woman speaks of rivers: generation and sexuality’ are Carolyn Martin Shaw’s sharply observed essays. ‘Imaginary snapshots: cinematic techniques’ is Jane Bryce’s astute reading of the ‘visually oriented’ author (p. 219). ‘The voice of cloth: interior dialogues and exterior skins’ is Jessica Hemmings’s fascinating piece while Lizzy Attree writes engagingly about ‘Language, Kwela music and modernity in Butterfly Burning’. In ‘Iron Butterflies: notes on Butterfly Burning’ Ranka Primorac offers insightful commentary, as does Ruth Lavelle in ‘Without a Name: reclaiming that which has been taken’.

‘The sight of the dead body: dystopia as resistance in Without a Name’ is Robert Muponde’s persuasive piece; while ‘Spirit possession and the paradox of post-colonial resistance in Nehanda’ is Laurence Vambe’s astute reading. Khombe Mangwanda diligently analyses ‘Remapping the colonial space’; and Nana Wilson-Tagoe shrewdly observes ‘History, gender and the problem of representation’. Emmanuel Chiwome attentively writes ‘A comparative analysis of Solomon Mutswairo and Yvonne Vera’s handling of the legend of Nehanda’; and ‘The struggle against time in Butterfly Burning’ is Violet Lunga’s stimulating piece. Lastly, in ‘History has its ceiling: the pressures of the past in The Stone Virgins’ Terence Ranger rightly notes a shift in Vera’s treatment of history.

What the collection lacks is both more analysis of The Stone Virgins, her final and most accomplished novel and in-depth commentary on her short stories, though some are briefly discussed. Nonetheless, the collection achieves a high standard. Also, the bibliography is invaluable, as is Bryce’s concluding interview with Vera where the author is at ease and inspiring. Sign and Taboo raises the profile of an outstandingly talented writer, and it will long remain an essential reference for Vera scholars.