zimbabwe

this mournable body

by tsitsi dangarembga

I was in high school when I read Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, and I was very excited to read THIS MOURNABLE BODY, my Zimbabwean choice and book no. 24 in my #readafrica2022 challenge.

Tambudzai is a woman in crisis. This is never explicitly acknowledged, rather, we watch her move through her lonely life making very little progress as she tries to rebuild the brief financial and social success she’d achieved in her youth. The novel is written in second person and to begin with, I found the book and Tambudzai hard to connect with. Her lack of success seems self-inflicted and egoistic. She puts the blame for her circumstances at the feet of everyone else but herself, as if she deserves more but the world has been cruel.

Early on in the book, Tambudzai witnesses the very public shaming of a young woman who lives in the same hostel as she does. Gertrude has been shopping in town and Tambudzai has been to a job interview for a job she desperately needs, but which has not gone well. The two woman arrive at the taxi rank at the same time and Tambudzai notices Gertrude arrive:

“Everyone splutters and when the air clears again you all gape at a young woman who is threading her way through the stalls of fruit and vegetables toward the combi. She is elegant on sky-high heels in spite of the rubble and the cracks in the paving. She pushes out every bit of her body that can protrude—lips, hips, breasts, and buttocks—to greatest effect. Her hands end in pointed black and gold nails. She holds several carrier bags that shout "NEON" and other boutique names in huge jagged letters. She sways the bags languidly, as she does her body. You gape as much as anyone else, recognition stirring. The young woman sashays over to a combi. Fasha-fasha she goes, like that, all her parts moving with the assurance of a woman who knows she is beautiful. The crowd shifts and regroups. Men inside and outside combis exhale sharply. Windows mist. You stir, too. Your breath stops in your throat as you finally identify the newcomer. It is your hostelmale Gertrude.”

The gathering crowd begins to harass and humiliate Gertrude for the way she is dressed and the situation quickly escalates into Gertrude being pushed to the ground and assaulted. Instead of helping her friend, Tambudzai joins in with the mob.

“The sight of your beautiful hostelmate fills you with an emptiness that hurts. You do not shrink back as one mind in your head wishes. Instead you obey the other, push forward. You want to see the shape of pain, to trace out its arteries and veins, to rip out the pattern of its capillaries from the body. The mass of people moves forward. You reach for a stone. It is in your hand. Your arm rises in slow motion.”

The scene is shocking, and seeing Tambudzai’s choices makes her hard to like. However, very soon it becomes clear that Tambudzai wants to “see the shape of pain,” because she is in so much psychological and emotional pain herself. As the story unfolds, it become clearer to what extent race, gender, class, age, and culture can work against even the most ambitious and well-educated women. The removed second person perspective was a brilliant way to illustrate the disconnect in a character navigating past trauma and mental health challenges, and despite the narrative distance, I found myself drawn deeply into the protagonist’s inner world. THIS MOURNABLE BODY is brilliantly written and definitely worth the challenge.