Ines Mzali

National Specters and the Reincarnation of Violence in Zimbabwe

Pheng Cheah proposes the metaphor of the ghost in order to rethink the postcolonial nation and posit it as a possible “figure of freedom.” Yet being “a creature of life-death” caught between the living nation people and dead capital, the nation represents both the possibility to actualize freedom and the potential to “turn awry” (Cheah).

This paper proposes to adapt Cheah’s dual ghost metaphor to a reading of spirit possession in relation to national history in two Zimbabwean novels. Chenjerai Hove’s Bones (1988 ) and Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins (2002) depict a national background in which past spirits of anti-colonial resistance haunt the present and reincarnate as ambivalent collective and individual expressions. Both authors draw on the theme of haunting through the figure of the spirit medium Nehanda, which bridges traditional beliefs and national symbolism. Nehanda was revered for her role as a spiritual leader in the 1896 uprisings and remembered for her last statement that her “bones will rise again.” Hence the second Chimurenga (or Liberation war in the seventies) symbolically realizes her prophecy. Nehanda, literally so to speak, returns to possess the present thus allowing the past to live-on (Derrida). Significantly, then, the haunting of the spirit and symbolism of Nehanda is not only conceived metaphorically, but also understood literally. Through the novels, I propose to explore how this spirit of resistance haunts the nation-state, “turns awry”, and generates modern avatars as post-Liberation Zimbabwe sinks into the violence of civil war.

 Ines Mzali is a doctoral candidate at the English department of the Université de Montreal. Her dissertation explores concepts of resistance and negotiation in African literature through postcolonial readings of the nation in the context of globalization. Her specialization in postcolonial studies started with her MA thesis which focused on Magic Realism in Twentieth century Indian literature. She received her Master’s degree from Concordia University, Montreal.