Why Don T You Carve Other Animals

Why Don't You Carve Other Animals

Fiction. African American Studies. The place is the white-ruled Rhodesia of the seventies (now Zimbabwe), the exile the African in his own land. Young men and women flee their villages to join the freedom fighters in the forests. These stories, set during the years of the armed struggle, tell of the other struggle, that of survival of those who stayed behind. Yvonne Vera, born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, tells her stories from a woman's point of view, in lyrical but unaffected prose, recreating the dark atmosphere of those months full of fear and hope.

Why Don't You Carve Other Animals

Sign and Taboo

Yvonne Vera's Nehanda (1993) signalled the presence of a new and remarkable writer. Four subsequent novels have confirmed that she was the most important African novelist to emerge during the 1990s. Critics from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Britain, the Caribbean and the United States demonstrate through a diversity of theoretical approaches the originality of her work. Yvonne Vera's dense and poetic writing records public and private experiences of moments in Zimbabwe's history through the consciousness of her central women characters. What sets her apart from most authors is her ability to handle the most difficult subjects and confront taboos. North America: African Books Collective; Zimbabwe: Weaver Press