Critical Appreciation of the Dichotomy of Harm and Healing in Selected War Fiction in Shona Language-Communal and Everyday Aspects of Healing in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Zimbabwean war fiction writers are fond of depicting harm that is suffered by individuals and some groups of individuals in the Zimbabwean war of liberation. The harm is in most cases in three broad categories of physical, sexual and psychological. The writers in question, especially those that treat the war of liberation and its aftermath in their works, propose different approaches to dealing with the harm which different individuals and groups of individuals suffered during the liberation struggle. It is with such realization that, this article selects three works of fiction, to discuss how writers of war fiction treat the bipartite relationship of harm and healing during and after the war of liberation in Zimbabwe. The chapter makes a critical appreciation of the harm which different characters in the war fiction suffer during the war and of the approaches which fiction writers propose for dealing with the harm after the war. What fiction writers propose as the panacea to the harm which their characters suffer during the war is critiqued from an understanding of both the events in the history of post-independence Zimbabwe and of the demands of Shona traditional culture which pertain to conflict management and conflict resolution.