Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins: A Representation of Women in Zimbabwean Politics

• In Event: Women's Politics: Finding a Way Out of No Way

Abstract

Dictator Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2018. State censorship produced self-censorship by writers like Yvonne Vera, who nevertheless told Zimbabwe’s story through metaphor. Her novel The Stone Virgins is a metaphorical representation of the Chimurenga, or War of Independence, and the little-known Gukurahundi Massacres. This paper highlights Zimbabwe’s story through Vera’s tale of two sisters, victims of the massacres. Their struggle as women to gain independence and identity in the patriarchal society, and the mutilation of women’s bodies, represent the gagging of Zimbabwean mouths so as not to expose the rot in the government that was.

Presenter

• Gloria Ajami Makokha, Kenyatta University