Chairman of Fools

by Shimmer Chinodya

Chairman of Fools explores the plight of Farai Chari, a supposedly successful writer, professor and self-acclaimed artist, living in an African culture in which tradition weighs heavy and middle class aspirations are crude. Farai yearns for a world in which men and women can freely associate with one another and gratify their passions without moral chastisement.

Genres: Fiction

196 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2000

About the author

born in Gweru in 1957 and was educated at Goromonzi High School and the University of Zimbabwe, where he studied literature and education. He gained an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa, USA, in 1985, a year after he had attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University.

He is the author of several books including Harvest of Thorns, for which he won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1990. His short story "Can We Talk", included in Can We Talk and Other Stories, was shortlisted for The Caine Prize for African Writing in 2000.

Other works by Shimmer Chinodya:
Dew in the Morning (1982) (Available in the AWS in 2001)
Farai's Girls (1984)
Child of War (published under the name of B. Chirasha) (1985).

Chinodya has worked extensively as a curriculm developer, materials designer, editor and screen writer. He has been awarded various fellowships abroad and from 1995 to 1997 was the Distinguished Visiting Professor in creative writing at St. Lawrence University, New York. He lives with his wife and family in Harare.

Reviews

[Randi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look at madness in the Third World.

[Juma Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chairman of Fools (2005) by Zimbabwean author Shimmers Chinodya has a very wobbly start. I found the thin prose in Chairman of Fools quite off-putting. Despite being a little fast paced, I grew frustrated by the lack of a substantive plot early on, whose effect is that one senses a rambling of sorts.

A little research online explains the book’s lack of plot—it is loosely autobiographical. It reveals the crisis in the life of Farai, a popular and well-known literature academic who has just returned to Zimbabwe from the United States on leave. An alcoholic, he suffers a mental breakdown and is diagnosed with the bipolar syndrome. Upon his admission to a psychiatric facility, he becomes the chairman of the patients there—or the “chairman of fools”. Through his reflections and experiences, we learn that he is troubled by a combination of factors—a creeping lack of confidence in his literary career, an increasingly assertive and independent wife, the deaths of his mother, father and brother in rapid succession, and competing pulls of modernity, Christian faith, and traditionalism.

Chairman of Fools is rich in portraying Zimbabwean society, and uses Farai to provide a microcosm of middle class life in Zimbabwe. A number of themes are infused into this short book—just over 180 pages long—such as loneliness and dislocation in exile; traditional practices (such as a proposed visit to a traditional spiritual healer to “cure” Farai’s mental instability) juxtaposed against Christian faith (which his wife espouses); materialism and consumerism; a slowly unraveling Zimbabwean economy (passing references to the effects of land reform and a weakening currency are made); and the effects of all these on marriage and family.

To this extent I think Chairman of Fools is a worthwhile read, although I would have been much happier if it was stylistically and aesthetically richer. Chinodya is able to reveal the tensions and dilemmas in Farai’s life in a convincing and dramatic way, but is let down by the disjointedness and thinness of plot and prose. I would however still like to read more of Chinodya, especially his award-winning novel, Harvest of Thorns.

[Mthabisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite thought evoking and humourous! What a good read!