Hearing Voices: The Linguistic and Narrative Design of Three Eminent Shona Novels

In this essay, I suggest a new methodology for the analysis of literary texts in Afrophone languages. Focusing on the concept of voice, I use a computer-generated linguistic corpus for exploring the linguistic and narratological set-up of three Zimbabwean novels from distinctly different historical and literary periods: Patrick Chakaipa’s Pfumo Reropa [Spear of Blood] (1961), Charles Mungoshi’s Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva [How Time Passes] (1975), and Ignatius Mabasa’s Mapenzi [Madmen] (1999). Supported by corpus-related data, my analysis will show that Chakaipa’s narrator speaks with a public voice that has a certain moral in mind and displays a patriarchal outlook. In Mungoshi’s novel we find a splitting of the narrative into different voices as well as an understated tone focusing on private rather than on public matters. Mabasa’s Mapenzi confronts the reader with extreme narrative fragmentation and a protagonist who is prone to “hearing voices,” mirroring the despondency that has overcome Zimbabwe at the end of the second millennium.