As far as historical products of Zimbabwean culture go, there might be none more famous than the Great Zimbabwe monument.
It is at this site that blue-and-white porcelain shards from China's Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) were discovered, showcasing Great Zimbabwe's stature as an economic hub. It was also at Great Zimbabwe that the famous Zimbabwe birds (which adorn our national flag) were discovered and subsequently looted by the colonisers. This being one of many such instances.
This introductory note serves to establish just how much the physical products of Zimbabwean culture are revered, yet its social offerings, particularly in the form of religion are often dismissed. This dismissal is at the heart of the tale that unfolds in Avenues By Train. A mystery wrapped in the supernatural, with Zimbabwe's indigenous religions and culture at its heart.
Farai Mudzingwa bridges the past and the present, in a story riddled with allegory, alive with humour and written with intrigue. In a chorus of voices that includes perspectives in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person, he deftly navigates a tale heavy with emotion. All while putting a spotlight on the colonial hangover and how the culture that came with colonisation has been embraced more than the indigenous.
"Where the gods may anger then forgive, nature tends towards patience and measured wrath. Hubris brings catastrophe, the world spins off-balance. Take for instance the series of gas explosions ripping up from deep in the bowels of the earth at Wankie No. 2 Colliery in June of 1972. Resulting in 424 miners’ bodies forever sealed in a carbon tomb. It is almost as if some deity held a grudge carried over from the floods on the Zambezi..." - an extract from Avenues By Train
It all begins in Miner's Drift, an imaginary small town on the outskirts of Zimbabwe, where development never reaches and the days are long for the dreamers. Gerald, the character at the heart of this novel, grows up there in a life that sees him meeting misfortune at an early age. A fatal accident on the train tracks completely re-alters the trajectory of his life and sees him battling with forces beyond the physical.
This relation to a spiritual realm beyond what we can observe seems tied to not only Gerald but his sister Natsai. As a young girl she had an encounter with water spirits, njuzu, and although she escapes she is left marked, and this mark becomes a calling card for the spirits beyond.
A journey to pursue riches in Harare becomes a walk of atonement. Gerald seeks answers and freedom by running away from the place he's called home, but discovers that the answers he needs are where he left.
Natsai who makes the journey first to Zimbabwe's capital is lost in the city and never found. A disappearance wrapped in the spiritual and embodying the warning of old about getting lost in what Harare has to offer.
Myth and folklore dance together, while the author regularly whispers in our ear with footnotes, painting a vivid picture of Zimbabwean society's decay. Corruption, political violence, drug abuse and prostitution. "The Ministry" is an ominous precence that not only drives the country into chaos but stifles human rights at any given chance, aptly showcasing an authoritarian state.
Avenues By Train is gripping storytelling, part fantasy novel and part historical record, paired with great wit. If Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and Dambudzo Marechera's House Of Hunger had a baby, this would be it.