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Writer Memory Chirere (left) and Farayi Mungoshi at the launch of Charles Mungoshi Jnr’s five motivational books recently

Lovemore Ranga Mataire
The temptation to draw parallels between father and son is always instinctive.

After all, Farayi Mungoshi is the son of legendary Zimbabwean author Charles Mungoshi, one of the finest and most consistent creative writers ever to come out of Zimbabwe.

Charles Mungoshi is a genius with a rare gift of creating classics each time he puts pen to paper.

“Waiting for The Rain” (1975), “Some Kind of Wounds” (1980), “The Setting Sun and the Rolling World” (1988), “Walking Still” (1997), “Coming of the Dry Season” (1972), “Makunun’unu Maodza Moyo” (What troubles the heart) (1970), “Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura” (Is silence not speaking) (1983), “Inongova Njake Njake” (Each man for himself) (1980) and “Ndiko Kupindana Kwemazuva” (That’s how days pass) (1975) are some of his enduring household book titles.

Mungoshi is one author who has massively contributed in shaping the canon of Zimbabwe’s literature only comparable to Dambudzo Marechera, Solomon Mutswairo, Musayemura Zimunya, Chenjerai Hove, Sternly Nyamupfukudza or Yvonne Vera.

But even such a comparison defies logic for Mungoshi is in his own league. The only explanation for his ingenuity lies in the spiritual realm.

He is spiritually inspired and that’s why he is able to craft something that points to deep secrets of human existence, penetrating to the source of things and in the process becoming the mediator between the source and the receiver.

Mungoshi is like your Oliver Mtukudzi, Marshal Munhumumwe, Stella Chiweshe, Thomas Mapfumo, Bob Marley or Salif Keita.

Their art perforate geographical, linguistic, ethnic, racial or any ethnic dichotomies.

Mungoshi is arguably the only writer who can effortlessly criss-cross from English to Shona or vice versa and still manages to maintain the same artistry and creative prowess.

So when Farayi called to say he had just published his inaugural book, I could not help but feel pessimistic.

The weight of expectation from an anxious readership that associate talent with genealogy must have been burdensome for a young man trying to create a niche for his name in the literary world?

It was inevitable not to associate Farayi with the same infamous crew of Peter Moyo, Suluman Chimbetu, Elijah Madzikatire, Tendai Chimombe, the Dembo brothers (Morgan and Tendai) — a bunch of struggling “talentless” children of superstars wanting to profit from their father’s legacy.

For three good weeks, I contemptuously made no effort to go beyond the front cover of “Behind The Wall Everywhere” (2016) published by Mungoshi Press. But Farayi is a pleasant lad, with a keen sense of humour and speaks with so much sincerity- measuring every word.

It was probably his pleasant personality that induced a sense of guilt and in turn forced me to grudgingly read his collection of five short stories.

Reading through all the stories was an enchanting experience and I immediately rued the day I ever attached a “single story” identity on Farayi.

How could I have not realised that this is the same Farayi who not so long ago gave us “Mo Money-More Problems”, a drama film that captivated the hearts of many ZTV audience for being socially realistic.

Far from being his father’s carbon copy, Farayi dares being different and has through this inaugural short story collection carved his own niche.

A very perceptive writer whose examination of the urban milieu impulsively strips the reader of any imagined veil and lays bare all the dirty linen.

While maintaining a simple diction, Farayi leads the reader to the inner belly of the urban milieu largely hidden from the public.

Religion, particularly Christianity features prominently in all the five stories — “Scones, bridges nezvitorobho”, “Dot.com”, “Winds in the Blood”, “The tower-light”, “Weed and becoming” and “Behind the Wall Everywhere.”

But the narrator’s attitude towards religion is somewhat ambivalent if not cynical.

In “Scones, bridges nezvitorobho”, Mushasha is on the verge of committing suicide — throwing himself down the Manyame River Bridge but is saved some a young girl Nomatter who offers him a drink and throws the damning letter down the river.

The letter is from his friend Jonasi whom he had assisted to come to London but later conspired with his wife to have him deported.

Jonasi soon moves in to stay with Rumbi and it is then that he opens up to Mushasha that the two children that he all along thought were his are not. Jonasi is the father and has been cheating with Mushasha’s wife well before the couple moved to England.

Thus in the letter to Mushasha Jonasi says: “I am a new man now. I have found Christ or rather, he found me washed up on the banks of regret. I felt I let you know I am trying my best to live right.”

It’s hard to believe that a man who professes to have found Christ derives pleasure in inflicting pain on his friend by declaring that he won’t leave his wife and he better lives with it.

While the story is in the third person narrative, Farayi intelligently crafts a narrative that makes it appear as though Mushasha is just a distraction to the three friends — Nomatter, Kuda and Hatitye celebrating the latter’s birthday with a scone and diluted juice. Yet for all we know the real story recounted in a flashback is about Mushasha tribulations.

It is a story about economic hardships forcing people to migrate to greener pastures, families disintegrating, betrayal, marriage and re-birth.

The same thread of religious cynicism is also apparent in the second story “Dot.com” whose main characters are Skuz, his son Jonso, Ndodi, Mai Ndodiwa, Mai Jonso, Prophet Gandi, Mai Chino and Baba Chino.

Again the setting is Chitungiwza in Zengeza. It is in this story that the Zengeza comes to life with all its warts and humorous anecdotes. It’s also a sad story of how poverty prematurely snaps up a young girl’s life forced into commercial sex for survival.

Poverty, moral degradation, religious hypocrisy, the devastating effects of the Aids scourge — all come to the fore.

Indeed, people are not what they appear to be, everyone has skeletons in the cupboard. Prophet Gandi’s infidelity with a married member of his flock — Mai Chino is exposed by Skuz in his defence of his lascivious attitude towards young Ndodiwa.

Fracas ensues as Baba Chino attacks Prophet Gandi turning the whole funeral into a charade.

All the stories have a reference to Chitungwiza as a setting probably an indication of the author’s social and historical experience, a place that he is most familiar with.

It is in “Behind the Wall Everywhere”, that Farayi’s ingenuity is on display. Land reform, its attendant nuances, frosty racial relations between black and white and black on black violence is critiqued through this story set in the immediate post-independence period.

Whites suffer from amnesia of wanting to hang on to colonial privileges while blacks demand that independence deliver them a paradise.

The ensuing developments on Mr Black’s farm reflect broadly on the developments taking place in the country were a country is undergoing a tumultuous period of becoming.

Farayi’s ultimate vision is to see a better Zimbabwe economically and politically and socially.

Farayi’s narrative is prophetic for how can it be a coincidence that the same issues he raises are the same issue that Alex Morris-Eyton, a former white commercial farmer whose land was acquired by Government for distribution.

In a conversation over a book he had published the 75-year old Eyton said land reform was inevitable and that the future of Zimbabwe belongs to young people who 36 years after independence are beginning shirk off the racial prejudice of their parents.

This depiction by Eyton who has never met Farayi is exemplified in the last story of the collection, which is also the title name of the book.

Despite the traumatic loss of the farm and his parents’ sense of betrayal, Christina still comes back to Easy to fulfil a testimonial match for her late brother Glen.

“It’s not about us anymore, Easy. It’s about what we leave our children . . . ” says Christian extending a hand of reconciliation to Easy.

While Farayi is never a carbon copy of his father, no reader can fail to decipher certain similar traits in their narrative.

As recounted by David Mungoshi in “Charles Mungoshi — A Critical Reader” edited by Maurice Vambe and Memory Chirere, there is a “deceptive simplicity” intertwined by an inceptive vision and witty dialogue something that is common in Farayi’s inaugural short stories.

Save for minor typographical errors including the confusion regarding Ras Van, a character in “The tower-light, weed” and becoming, who in one instance is called Ras Vans, this books is set to make Farayi one of the powerful voices in the short story genre.

My personal take is that the young Mungoshi has managed through this book to free himself of the burden of expectation and has carved his own space. Yes, unlike other “talentless” children profiting on their father’s legacy, Farayi truly carries his father’s creative prowess genes.