Implications of the Canonisation of the Zimbabwean Story-Telling Tradition, with Special Reference to Sele Cted Zimbabwean Short Stories
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SHORT STORIES FOR LIFE: IMPLICATIONS OF THE CANONISATION OF THE ZIMBABWEAN STORY-TELLING TRADITION, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SELE CTED ZIMBABWEAN SHORT STORIES BY SHERECK MBWERA UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA DECEMBER 2016 SHORT STORIES FOR LIFE: IMPLICATIONS OF THE CANONISATION OF THE ZIMBABWEAN STORY-TELLING TRADITION, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SELECTED ZIMBABWEAN SHORT STORIES by MBWERA SHERECK Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY in the subject of AFRICAN LANGUAGES at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA PROMOTER: PROFESSOR T. M. SENGANI CO-PROMOTER: PROFESSOR D.E. MUTASA December 2016 i DECLARATION Student Number 5186-544-0 I, Shereck Mbwera, declare that Short Stories For Life: Implications of the Canonisation of The Zimbabwean Story-telling Tradition, With Special Reference to Selected Zimbabwean Short Stories is my work and that the sources used or quoted have been indicated by means of complete references. Signature: _______________________ Date: 07 December 2016 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am greatly indebted to my promoters, Professor T. M. Sengani and Professor D. E. Mutasa who went beyond the limit of patience to work out something meaningful out of my amateurish ideas and views. They provided diligence and rigour in their feedbacks which shaped and directed the trajectory taken by this study. They also crossed the bound of duty to delve into my challenges of social nature, especially when the project was almost guillotined by financial and other constraints beyond my control. Thank you for providing intellectual nurture in both formal and informal capacities. Now the prize belongs to me while the debts are all chalked on the wall. I reserve the best to University of South Africa (UNISA) for granting me a Bursary that financed the project. A research of this magnitude could not be achieved without this funding. Thank you for making me realise my potentials. I am deeply obliged to the friendship and invaluable support of Dr Charles Tembo, senior lecturer at Midlands State University (MSU), who responded to a questionnaire, thoroughly edited my final thesis and made useful comments and suggestions. Nokuti imi matungidza mwenje wangu saka nemi, Comrade, tichavamba hondo. Nemi tichadarika rusvingo (For thou hast light my candle, therefore, by thee, Comrade, I have run through a troop. With your camaraderie I have leapt over a wall). Professor W. Chigidi of MSU and Professor I. Muwati, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Zimbabwe, you are marvellous. Thank you for your stunning data gathering and editing support. May the Almighty do to you as you have done to me? My thesis has also recuperated the best out of fellow colleagues, editors, reviewers, publishers and authors who contributed insightful data through interviews and questionnaires. No material reward can duly repay you. Special acknowledgements go to my mother, wife and children for both material and emotional support you rendered when I needed you most. I count my blessings on you because you are always there for me. iii DEDICATION I bestow the success of this thesis: to my late father, Simon Mbwera, from whose fatherhood I inherited not only the name, but the blood, whose progeny I pass on, both, in the old ways and in words. To the motherhood of two nonpareil women in my life, Angeline, who made me a child and Maude, the one with whom I make others. To the childhood of Precious, Opal Andrew, Pretty Patricia and Blessing Isheunesu, all of whom I pray, should take after me. To God, “For he spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” (Psalms 33:9). Mwari wakataura kamwe chete: ndakanzwa kaviri: kuti simba nderaMwari Netsitsivo ndedzenyu, Ishe; Nokuti munoitira munhu mumwe nomumwe sezvaakabata. God hath spoken once; twice have I heard; that power belongs unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work. (Psalms 62:11-12). iv ABSTRACT This study examines the myth of the surrogate power of canonicity by exposing the condition of liminality of the Zimbabwean short story genre within African literary canon. Building on the hypothesis that canonisation distorts literature the study postulates that literary canon produce predictable biases in construing the position of the short story. It fossilises and condenses the marginal genres to the extent that the existing canon repertoire hardly recognises them. The peripheral but de facto canon of the short story genre entertains a strong relationship of heteronomy to the mainstream/central canon. This thesis studies this relationship which determines canon formation within the African literary systems. It challenges the prevailing status quo in which the short story is polarised against other literary modes. The polarity creates a charged diametric force between the presumed canonical genres and the supposedly non-canonical short story mess. What lacks in this equation of conflicts is a sense of revival, reformation and continuity of the short story canon. The marginality of the short story canon is predicated on factors external to the genre itself, such as the influence of colonial institutions, collegiate institutions and publishers on writers. These factors pervade the dialectics of canonical marginality of the genre. The study, which argues that there is no unanimity on theory of canon, proposes Africulture, as both a theory and praxis of Afrocentricity, to function as an arbiter of short story literary reputation and consecration. The research reveres the autonomous value of African story-telling tradition which withstood the test and movement of time, in the process, surviving not only the historical-cum-cultural threat of colonial loss and canonical displacement, but also the throes and will power of new media and digital technologies. The ascendancy of the electronic short story genre to canonical status remains questionable. Critical controversies abound about the canonicity of electronic literature. The study employs Technauriture as a theoretical model for rethinking the transcendence of the electronic short story canon. The study concludes that, by virtue of its resilience, the short story ought to be treated as a wholesale and independent genre, worth of full scale appreciation. Key words Africulture, Technauriture, short story, Canonicity, African literary canon, cybernetic literature, e-short story, v TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i Acknowledgement ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ii Dedication ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- iv Abstract ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background/Context statement of purpose ------------------------------------ 1 1.2 Statement of Problem -------------------------------------------------------------- 2 1.3 Aim of the study --------------------------------------------------------------- 3 1.4 Objectives of Study --------------------------------------------------------------- 3 1.5 Research questions --------------------------------------------------------------- 4 1.6 Justification of research ------------------------------------------------------ 4 1.7 Scope of study --------------------------------------------------------------- 6 1.8 Definition of terms --------------------------------------------------------------- 7 1.9 Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.0 Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 2.1 The ‘Canon Wars:’ Afro-American Debate--------------------------------------- 10 2.1.1 Gates’ Canon- formation and the Afro- American literary tradition----- 13 2.1.2 Guillory and canon as cultural capital---------------------------------------- 17 2.1.3 Synopsis -------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 2.2 Towards an African literary Canon ----------------------------------------- 23 2.2.1 The Modern literary canon: The contemporary African Condition------- 27 2.2.1.1 The condition of liminality of the contemporary African short story ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 30 2.2.1.2 Canon of the Contemporary Cybernetic African literature-------- 36 vi 2.3 Zimbabwean Literature and the problem of Canon ------------------------ 42 2.3.1 Zimbabwean Literary Canon as Western imposed Tradition-------------- 44 2.3.1.1 The Literature Bureau’s agency in canonical imposition---------- 50 2.3.1.2 The Krog defined SRLB canon --------------------------------- 52 2.3.2 Zimbabwean Literary canon as formation --------------------------------- 59 2.3.2.1 Early critics’ struggle for canonical identity: Kahari’s Realism and The Shona Novel --------------------------------------------------- 61 2.3.1.2 Chiwome’s socio- historical construction of Shona novel--------- 69 2.4. Evolving perspectives on Contemporaneity and Canonicity -------------- 72 2.4.1 Contemporary Literature: Expanding small literatures’ Canon------------ 76 2.4.2 The Contemporary Zimbabwean Short story canon------------------------- 78 2.4 Conclusion --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 79 CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1. Theoretical Framework: The