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Phillip Chidavaenzi

Stanely Mushava Literature Today

Phillip Chidavaenzi is one of Zimbabwe’s prolific young writers. His first novel, “The Haunted Trail”, won him the 2007 Nama Outstanding First Published Creative Work gong in 2007, subsequently winning Longman Zimbabwe the second prize in the Zimbabwe National Publishers Association Awards. He has published the Nama-nominated “Ties that Bind” (2015) and “The Gospel of Grace: From the Old to the New Testament” (2016). In this edition of Literature Today, columnist Stanely Mushava interviews Chidavaenzi on his just released novel, “The Latter Rain.”

SM: If a nurse injects Phillip Chidavaenzi right now, he will practically bleed ink. You have been lately dropping book after book – two novels and a theological title in barely two years. And you have indicated that you are concurrently working on yet another novel and an inspirational title. Explain this violent outburst of creativity?

PC: I always say the easiest thing that I can do is to write a book! Stuff comes to me all the time. When ideas start flowing, I immediately want to coalesce them into a book. After I finished script of the novel I am planning to release next year, “Chasing the Wind,” I said to myself I was going to take a break. But I pictured people making ends meet just to see the next day. And I saw the story that is now building into a script I’ve tentatively titled, “Sword in the Wilderness”.

SM: Briefly, take us into the world of your new novel, “The Latter Rain”?

PC: “The Latter Rain” tells the story of two teenage girls who flee their rural homes in Mt Darwin to Harare in search of a better life. Isabel runs away from the wrath of a vindictive step mother while her best friend, Dorothy, follows two years later in a breath-taking escape from an arranged marriage to a religious sect leader who had assisted her family with food at the height of a devastating food shortage.

The two girls are, however, forced to make compromises when they learn life in Harare is not any easier. So they make different choices. One ends up dead 10 years later. The other is left with the task of mending broken relations with a family deeply wounded by her escape.

SM: And that’s all we get for free?

PC: Obviously (laughs)! There is much more, yes. This is just a skeletal outline.

SM: It took you 10 years to write this book. The time it takes seven coaches to qualify for Afcon. Does the lengthy writing or incubation period reflect a more ambitious pitch for the novel?

PC: I didn’t know it took seven coaches to qualify for Afcon. I’m not a football person. An ambitious pitch? Yes. I was trying to be experimental with style. It was painstaking at the beginning to make the story gel. But with time, I decided to share the telling of the story with my major characters.

So, in the final book, which is very special to me, you have incidences where the characters tell parts of the story in the first person narrative while I tell other parts as a third person, omniscient narrator.

I think it’s quite ironic that the story covers a period of 10 years, exactly the same time it took to complete the novel. But I think this has helped enrich the story because you have characters going for the World Cup 2010 in SA, you have Zimbabweans resorting to use of foreign currency, and you have young women stripping and dancing naked in nightclubs to survive. And you have your Pentecostal churches with their leaders in shiny suits and long, pointed shoes.

SM: Some literary critics have unofficially appointed you the Minister of Women’s Affairs, thanks to the understanding of the fairer sex that runs the thread of your novels. Is “The Latter Rain” in the same cast with “The Haunted Trail” and “Ties that Bind” in this respect?

PC: Minister of Women’s Affairs, hahaha. I didn’t know. Well, I remember Memory Chirere saying in a review that I feel deep into my womenfolk, which he said was often difficult for male writers. Honestly, I don’t know how this happens but I guess it comes naturally.

SM: You have dropped your recent titles from New Heritage Press. Why did you turn your back on CPS?

PC: I wouldn’t say I’ve worked with CPS, because this is a creature that came out of the ashes of Longman Zimbabwe who published my first book. Of course I understand Pearsons, the parent company for Longman, has handed over their affairs in Zimbabwe to CPS. I tried to get my second novel published by the then Longman Zimbabwe, but there were not taking any new scripts, so I had to look elsewhere.

SM: “The Latter Rain” has a Christian ring. Your novels locate a place for God in the affairs of men without sounding preachy. What are the challenges of packaging a spiritual conviction in a popular culture format?

PC: I will admit it’s not an easy thing to do. But my decision to take the plunge and do novels with a Christian theme was largely inspired by authors like Francine Rivers and Karen Kingsbury. I observed how they packaged their Christian novels and adopted that approach.

SM: Tell us about this, your other life as a gospel minister?

PC: I am a gospel minister by calling and training. I am basically called to be a teacher of God’s Word so I have ministered in different denominations. My wife and I established a platform for couples called Lovefeast two years back but we haven’t had meetings lately due to commitments elsewhere as my wife is busy with her women’s ministry called Phenomenal Woman Roundtable. But my ministry is largely writing-related. I push the message of Christ through my novels, the other books, like “The Gospel of Grace” (2016) and “Walking in the Spirit”, which will be released next year.

SM: As an editor who deals frequently with self-help books, how do you answer the charge that inspirational writing is sometimes uninspired, generalised and technically bald?

PC: There are good writers in that genre, and there are bad ones, too. Some are not writers, actually. They are speakers. But the rules are different. Writing is very technical and that’s where most preachers and motivational speakers miss it.

SM: Your writing is genre-straddling – novelist, journalist and theologian, even occasional sparks of poetry. How do these elements feed into each other? P.S: You are required not to mention your work with downtown media houses!

PC: I look at myself primarily as a novelist. But in my writing, all these are related. If you look at my prose, you will find lines that read like poetry. It makes my prose more engaging, more enjoyable, I think. My career as a journalist has exposed me to so much of life in different settings and places, and this has enriched my understanding of life in general and I capture some of the things I come across on paper for cinematic scenes in my novels.

SM: You seem to have come to the height of your powers after marriage, at least in the sense of prolificacy. How does family life gel with creativity?

PC: (laughs) Well, I’m not sure if that’s exactly the case. Suffice to say that my wife is a very creative being. Actually she reads my scripts, and those of other authors I edit. My little girl, just six months old, seems to be following suit. Her mother bought her lots of dolls but she doesn’t seem interested in them. She would rather play with my books (there are plenty of them at home), my laptop and my smartphone.

SM: 21st century authors have a bad reputation of writing for themselves. One could say writers writing books about writers. On the contrary, you seem to have achieved a certain level of clarity and immediacy. I have heard Memory Chirere crediting your novels as the Zimbabwean response to Pacesetters. Explain this aspect of your creative process.

PC: That’s interesting. Well, Pacesetters were part of my early diet but I’m not sure to what extent they influenced my own writing. I just love to tell a good, gripping story.

SM: How did you happen into writing?

PC: I have always loved books from early childhood. The first schools I attended also promoted a strong reading culture. It is only in high school, that I started entertaining the thought that one day I would write a book.

SM: Thanks for your time, Minister!