Novel
Feso
Solomon Mutswairo · 1956
Synopsis
Several centuries before British colonisation, a Shona kingdom is invaded, and the Vanyai people, reduced to servitude, await deliverance. The narrative, which bears the name of its hero, Feso, borrows its songs and storyteller's techniques from Zezuru oral tradition. In the course of the story, a poem calls on Nehanda Nyakasikana, whom the Vanyai regard as their protector and liberator, to come to the aid of the oppressed; readers in the colony read it as an allegory of white domination.
Context
The novel, written in Zezuru, appeared under the colony, in 1956 according to Britannica and Pindula, in 1957 according to other sources. Read and studied in schools, it was banned by the Rhodesian government in the mid-sixties, when its allegorical meaning was understood, and became required reading in nationalist circles. The author himself produced an English version, published in Washington in 1974 by Three Continents Press and reissued in Harare in 1995.
Who it is for
In Shona, in its Zezuru variety, with the songs and turns of phrase of the oral tradition; an English version makes it possible to read it without knowing the language.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first novel published in Shona; Britannica makes its author the first novelist in the Zezuru language and the most important poet in that language.
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