{"id":3464,"date":"2019-02-20T23:53:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T23:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=3464"},"modified":"2026-10-27T00:05:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T00:05:05","slug":"charles-mungoshi-through-the-eyes-of-his-peers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=3464","title":{"rendered":"Charles Mungoshi, Through the Eyes of His Peers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Rukudzo Onai<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Oliver Mtukudzi is singing with the angels, it is not hard to tell which song the winged orchestra will be performing these days. After all, Neria has lost her husband, the foremost Zimbabwean writer Charles Mungoshi, and her loss is shared by the nation he taught and the writing community he inspired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To hear fellow writers tell it, Mungoshi\u2019s first language was laughter, while his physical address was the habit-forming bottle. In fond recollections telling of young love and artist encounters in Zengeza and Kambuzuma shebeens, he stars as a man of disarming charm and a writerly ego only outsized by his wit and grit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mungoshi, who died on Saturday, 16 February 2019, having suffered from a neurological condition for almost 10 years, is, however, chiefly remembered as the writer who emptied himself to tell the stories of the least regarded with the greatest compassion. Whereas his degreed peers were \u201cwriters\u2019 writers\u201d, Mungoshi was \u201cthe people\u2019s writer\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The co-founding director of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) has been laid to rest in Manyene, Chikomba district, where his story began on 2 December 1947. From there it branched out to mission schools, office jobs and dial-shifting accomplishments as a novelist, poet, playwright, editor, publishing director, translator and storyteller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bookish teenager<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to This Is Africa<\/strong>, his brother and fellow writer, David Mungoshi, recalled how Charles had a literary career figured out as a teenager. \u201cHe first began to talk about his intention to write in about 1964, when he was in Form 2 at St Augustine\u2019s Penhalonga. His first published story was called \u201cCain\u2019s Medal\u201d and was published in the African Parade Magazine<\/em> under the name Carl Manhize sometime in 1965.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Charles was an undiscriminating devotee of books, from genre fiction to modernist experimentalism. \u201cAn avid reader by any standard\u201d he exposed David to Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and crime novelist Peter Cheyney, whose influence, David is convinced, can be traced in Mungoshi classics like Ndiko Kupindana kwaMazuva<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got to know of James Joyce from Charles and was permanently impressed by Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man<\/em>, while he seemed to be really engrossed in Ulysses<\/em>, which to this day I still find dense and impenetrable,\u201d said David, who also named Jack Kerouac and the Zen masters as the late great\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David intimated that, while Charles \u201ccould deceive people into thinking he was just another drunk,\u201d he did not actually drink and write. Perhaps this was because writing alone was a thing of intoxication for him, a possibility suggested by his widow, Jesesi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drunken master with an ego<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Highly regarded Shona novelist Aaron Chiundura Moyo was one of those so \u201cdeceived\u201d by Mungoshi\u2019s drunken-master persona during their 1976 encounter. \u201cAs I was walking along the street, there were people drinking at a shebeen, and Mungoshi was one of them. Someone who knew us both called me. Since I do not take beer, I initially refused but later joined them,\u201d Moyo recalled in an exclusive interview with This Is Africa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, I had read his novel Makunun\u2019unu Maodza Mwoyo<\/strong> at school and had liked the book very much but I didn\u2019t know him in person. When he was introduced to me, he seemed drunk and went on about where he was working, what kind of the job he was doing, and bluntly told us all how he had rejected my manuscript and how he disliked my published book, Uchandifungawo<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a human being I was done being undressed in public. We exchanged nasty words and people tried to cool our tempers. He sobered up a bit, took me aside and said he liked my book very much and wanted me to see his place. After some initial resistance, I joined him and was introduced to this very beautiful woman who was carrying their first-born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe cooked sadza for us and I cleared the plate since I was hungry and happy by now. Years later he kept reminding me in happy times that \u2018Aaron came to my house and wiped the plates clean. I am not misrepresenting you, Aaron; you were a loafer in Kambuzuma.\u2019 I could only laugh as he was not lying,\u201d Moyo recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mungoshi educated Zimbabweans from diverse quarters of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was, perhaps, a thing for members of the so-called second generation of Zimbabwean writing to be ungenerous with each other. Mungoshi himself was the target of Marechera\u2019s drunken jab: \u201cYou are not an artist\u201d but no love was lost. The unlucky Moyo also took public shots from the controversial \u201cdread\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having become a family friend of the Mungoshis, Moyo enlisted the couple for his ZBC drama, Ndabve Zera<\/em>. But even as the paymaster, Moyo, who played Jesesi\u2019s on-screen boyfriend, was in for more Mungoshi shots. The jealous writer-husband kept shouting, \u201cEnough! Enough!\u201d each time Moyo got too close to Jesesi, spoiling the make-believe of the drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I offered him money for a drink, he would pretend to refuse the offer by saying, \u2018The likes of Aaron! You want an opportunity to tell people that you buy Mungoshi beer!\u2019 It would take a lot of assurance for him to accept the small offer,\u201d Moyo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He credited Mungoshi with innovating the Shona novel and taking it to a level beyond everyone else with Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura?<\/em> and Ndiko Kupindana kwaMazuva<\/em>, and for inspiring later writers like Ignatius Mabasa. In moments of immodesty, Mungoshi reportedly bragged about outdoing university-educated writers with his borderline pass in Ordinary Level English. An \u201cupstart crow\u201d of sorts!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Loverman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a 2014 function organised by the Zimbabwe Writers Association, Jesesi, who plays the famous Neria in the Tsitsi Dangarembga-penned movie that also spawned her on-screen brother Oliver Mtukudzi\u2019s classic song, shared the story of how Charles could not tell whether he was in Manyene or Harare by the time he finished his novel, Makunun\u2019unu Maodzamoyo<\/em>. Actually in Harare, Mungoshi had been swallowed up by the world of his own Manyene-set creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literary journalist Beavan Tapureta recounts the story of how the lovebirds met in 1974 at the Kambuzuma residence of Jesesi\u2019s brother-in-law. The novice actress was unwell and was lying down when Charles came in. She was amused when the 27-year old bachelor inquired, \u201cAh, so how do we tell her height when she is lying down?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesesi Mungoshi (middle), a popular Zimbabwean actress who starred as Neria in the 1993 hit film Neria, at Oliver Mtukudzi\u2019s funeral in Madziwa. Neria was written by award winning Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga. Photo: This is Africa\/ A Chatora<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that encounter onwards, he was on the girl\u2019s case like an insurance salesman, resulting in one of the arts\u2019 greatest love stories, a 44-year-long marriage of devotion, faith and mutual artistic excellence. In 2017, Jesesi and their first born, Farayi, won a National Arts Merit (Nama) award in the drama and literary categories respectively. Charles was undergoing an operation, the second in few months, and had been in and out of hospital for seven years as his family helped him fight a debilitating neurological condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he regained the power of speech, Charles asked for Farayi\u2019s short story collection, Behind the Wall Everywhere<\/em>, and David\u2019s poetry anthology, Live like an Artist<\/em>. No stranger to accolades, Charles\u2019s more recent recognitions at home included the 2014 National Art Merit Award (NAMA) Outstanding Fiction Book Prize for Branching Streams Flow in the Dark<\/em>, a certificate of excellence on the 30th anniversary of ZIBF (2013), the highest ranking, with five books, on the Silver Jubilee (2005) best books list and a University of Zimbabwe honorary doctorate (2003).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National hero<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Zimbabwe Writers Association has \u2013 unsuccessfully, it seems \u2013 petitioned government to accord Charles Mungoshi the status of national hero. This would have been a natural decision, as Mungoshi, who died at 71, is easily one of the country\u2019s foremost cultural figures, ranked by many as Zimbabwe\u2019s greatest writer, including by Petina Gappah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His works have been influential school texts since the 1980s, when his classic novel, Waiting for the Rain<\/em>, became the first set text by an African writer, helping to loosen the Europeans\u2019 illiberal chokehold on Zimbabwean education. He swept up many international awards, including the Commonwealth Prize and the Noma Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

He told the stories of the least regarded with the greatest compassion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

His trendsetting contemporary, Tsitsi Dangarembga, received the news of Mungoshi\u2019s death with sorrow but also gratitude for his legacy, stressing that Mungoshi, more than any other writer, taught Zimbabweans about themselves. \u201cCharles Mungoshi will always have a special place in my esteem for the focused clarity, the courageous honesty and depth of compassion with which he depicted the Zimbabwean condition, and the lives, hopes and fears of ordinary Zimbabweans,\u201d Dangarembga told This Is Africa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis work inspired me to found my production house, Nyerai Films. After reading some of his short stories, I realised that as Zimbabweans we have many urgent stories that we need to be thinking about and reflecting on deeply, that do not reach the masses of our people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI founded Nyerai Films in 1992 specifically to focus on adaptation, inspired by Charles Mungoshi\u2019s work. I wanted to bring his narrative to greater numbers and motivate greater general interest in his work,\u201d stated the creator of the films Neria<\/em> and Everyone\u2019s Child<\/em> who has long intended to screen a particular short story by Mungoshi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Footprints in the Mists of Time<\/em> author Spiwe Mahachi-Harper calls Mungoshi the favourite Zimbabwean writer who inspired her to write. \u201cIt was while at college that my class had the opportunity to meet the great writer again (following her primary school encounter with the writer). What a pleasure it was to sit with the great scribe and discuss the plots and characters in his books. Later in life I had the pleasure of teaching my literature classes his short stories,\u201d Mahachi-Harper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis writing is so vivid it makes you feel you are part of it or that you need to be in those places. I was pleased when, during a drive from Harare to Masvingo some decades ago, we passed through his village. At that moment one of the most memorable places in his short stories, Marondamashanu, stopped being just a name in a story. He shall be missed but we are enriched as a nation in that he leaves behind a  legacy in name and in his beautiful works,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beginnings of the Zimbabwean Book Fair<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mungoshi co-founded ZIBF in 1983 with Phyllis Johnson and her late husband, David Martin. \u201cHe helped to begin to bridge the literary gap in Africa through supporting translations of novels from French and Portuguese into English,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was disturbed that African writers could not communicate directly with each other across the language divide, and he experienced that directly in trying to communicate with French-speaking writers from West Africa,\u201d she said. Apart from the French-English divide, Mungoshi ably translated Ngugi WaThiongo\u2019s A Grain of Wheat<\/em> into the Shona, with the title Tsanga yeMbeu<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCharles received Jean-Marie Adiaffi from Ivory Coast in another ZIBF visit and presented to him his book translated to English. They laughed together when Adiaffi told him, \u2018Now I have written a book I cannot read,\u2019 an issue they both took very seriously,\u201d recalled Johnson, who also worked with Mungoshi at Zimbabwe Publishing House, particularly as curators of the classic ZPH Writers Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A writer without an ego<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irene Staunton and Murray McCartney of Weaver Press also shared fond memories of the writer with This Is Africa<\/strong>. \u201cCharles was a scrupulous writer who weighed every word for precision and integrity. A deeply compassionate person, he often wrote about people marginalised by society, exploring their pain and their struggles with a keen eye and a wealth of experience,\u201d said Staunton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staunton, who has published two of Mungoshi\u2019s books, The Milkman Doesn\u2019t Only Deliver Milk<\/em> and Walking Still<\/em> under the Baobab Books imprint, as well as a short story, \u201cThe Sins of the Fathers\u201d, in the Weaver Press anthology, Writing Still<\/em>, commended Mungoshi for being very widely read and \u201cnever without a book\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was very proud of his beloved wife, Jesesi, an actress and film producer. Together they had five children, and his family was central to his life. This was never easy, despite the awards he received, as his books never sold in the quantities that would have freed him from financial worries,\u201d Staunton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cCharles was a warm, gentle, caring writer, who shrugged off his success as if it were an old glove.\u201d \u2013 Irene Staunton<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCharles was a warm, gentle, caring writer, who shrugged off his success as if it were an old glove. At the same time, recognition by the University of Zimbabwe, who awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2003, meant a lot to him, as he had left school after doing his O-levels. He once told me, rather sadly, that he was \u2018not as educated as other writers\u2019; his contemporaries, all of whom had degrees. Finally, one should not forget that Charles had a great sense of humour, and even when he was ill, his eyes would twinkle with laughter as he shared a joke,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCartney recalls Mungoshi as a regular visitor to their home, where he wrote at a quiet remove from Chitungwiza\u2019s distractions. A letter to McCartney\u2019s mother, shared with This Is Africa<\/strong>, expands on Mungoshi\u2019s \u201cdrunken master\u201d reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo the Book Caf\u00e9, for readings by two of our poet friends, Charles Mungoshi and Julius Chingono, who were so drunk that their eyes could hardly follow the page. Charles thought it would help if he borrowed Julius\u2019s glasses whenever it was his turn, but all it did was make the event seem more and more like a Marx Brothers\u2019 comedy routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were rescued by Chirikure Chirikure, who read for both of them while they looked on, glassy-eyed. Good-natured comradeship. The literary demi-monde at its best,\u201d the Weaver Press director wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mungoshi would not remember the younger poet who came to the rescue that night when he suffered from a memory lapse years later. Albert Nyathi recalls a visit the two friends made to an ill Mungoshi. His wife asked him if he could remember the visitors. After looking at Chirikure blankly for a while, Mungoshi\u2019s attention turned to Nyathi and he shouted mischievously, \u201cMundevere!\u201d (the Ndebele!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are only a few stories about the man who told the stories of everyone in 17 books. He passes on at a time when the reading culture is at its lowest ebb in Zimbabwe; a victim of our philistinism who died largely unrewarded. May a generation worthier of him come after us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published by<\/em> This Is Africa. All rights reserved. Contact author at rukudzoonai@duck.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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