House of Stone

by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

Bukhosi has gone missing. His father, Abed, and his mother, Agnes, cling to the hope that he has run away, rather than been murdered by government thugs. Only the lodger seems to have any idea. Zamani has lived in the spare room for years now. Quiet, polite, well-read and well-heeled, he's almost part of the family - but almost isn't quite good enough for Zamani. Cajoling, coaxing and coercing Abed and Agnes into revealing their sometimes tender, often brutal life stories, Zamani aims to steep himself in borrowed family history, so that he can fully inherit and inhabit its uncertain future.

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Zimbabwe, Historical Fiction, Historical, African Literature, Contemporary

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma (born 28 January 1988) is a Zimbabwean writer. She is best known for her 2013 debut collection titled Shadows, a novella and short story book.
Tshuma was born and grew up in Bulawayo, a major city in Zimbabwe. She completed her high-school education at Girls' College, Bulawayo; where she studied Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and French for her A Levels. She is an alumna of the University of Witwatersrand, where she studied Economics and Finance. In 2009, her short story You in Paradise won the Intwasa Short Story Competition (now Yvonne Vera Award) for short fiction before she shot to recognition in 2013 following the release of her collection Shadows, which was published by Kwela Books. Shadows was nominated at the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature and also won the Herman Charles Bosman Prize. In 2014, Tshuma was enlisted as part of Africa39, a collaborative project by Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club, which recognises top writers from Africa under the age of 40. A one-time Magtag Fellow at the MFA Creative Writing Programme at the University of Iowa, Tshuma is presently pursuing her PhD at the University of Houston's Literature & Creative Writing Programme

Reviews

[Brown Girl Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

House of Stone is the history of Zimbabwe from the 70s - liberation struggle, the 80s genocide,and the 90s the golden years. The story is narrated by Zumani a deranged young man who is trying to become the new son and member of a family. It's through this couple that we are introduced to the horrors, fear, and silence of a nation. The "comic farce with seriousness" we experience through Zumani grabs the reader and won't let go. His craziness goes crescendo just to the end of the book. This historical fiction story builds the reality of House of Stone, Zimbabwe. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma spent 6 years writing and crafting this brilliant work that left me instructed and stupefied. This is a debut novel that doesn't have any real faults in my opinion. I can't get over how well these puzzle pieces fit together perfectly to show the history of a country. I highly recommend this book and I also recommend the audiobook which I had the pleasure of listening to while reading books 2 and 3 of the book.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliantly written, but the lack of redemption or hope made me want to read it faster than I would otherwise, that overarching sense of doom, that things aren't going to end well, pervades the text, the narrative of this one young man's attempt to manipulate a family into accepting him as their son, having supplanted their own son is like a microcosm of the story of the nation, of a leader that positions himself forcefully as the father of the nation.

Upon Further Reflection:

House of Stone is a novel in three parts, Book One centres around Zamani’s determination to befriend his landlord Abed, accompanying him in his misery as he searches for his son, applying subtle, manipulative, and ultimately devastating pressure on him, prising Abed’s family history open, in order to find a way in. In Book Two his focus is on converting Mama Agnes and the final slim Book Three are a series of revelations.

We know from the opening pages that Zamani and Bukhosi were together when he disappeared, along with their friend and mentor Dumo, though nothing of what we know is ever shared with Abed and Agnes.

I’m the one who’s survived and he’s the one who’s disappeared, thanks to those mad antics of his. Poof! Like a spoko. He too was gobbled up by one of those police vans the day of the Mthwakzi rally, and has not been regurgitated since.

Like Bukhosi, I doubt I’ll ever see Dumo again. It was he who taught me that a man could remake himself by remaking his past. So when Abednego said I was like a son to him and that he would, from then on, call me his surrogate son, I felt a swell of pride and the prick of opportunity. Perhaps, as my surrogate father’s son, I can be blessed with sole familial affection and, in this way, finally powder away the horrors of my own murky hi-story bequeathed to me by parents I never knew.

As he draws the personal and family history out of Abed and Agnes, we traverse 50 tumultuous years in the region, years Abed would prefer not to remember, they contain his happiest and most traumatic memories, as the country witnesses the death of colonial Rhodesia and the bloody birth of modern Zimbabwe.

It’s a discomforting read, the author doesn’t hold back with the detail, some scenes come at you so quickly, you don’t have time to look away. In that respect I remembered the visceral detail of a novel I couldn’t finish, Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Somehow, despite those scenes, I was able to continue with this book, but I was put into a state of literary vigilance for much of it, which wasn’t always comfortable. Humanity showed itself to be unpredictable and despicable in its newfound possession of unregulated power. It was a bittersweet victory that saw the introduction of a despot leader and made an entire population feel unsafe.

One of the periods we are taken back to was the Gukurahundi, (a series of massacres of Ndebele civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army from early 1983 to late 1987. It derives from a Shona language term which loosely translates to “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”). I hadn’t heard of this term, and in the novel the younger generation hadn’t either. Zamani pressures Abed to tell him:

Isn’t this the hi-story Bukhosi always wanted to know, before he went missing? For which he got a beating whenever he asked our father ‘Baba, what happened in the ’80s, what was the Gukurahundi?

That was the Gukurahundi, Bukhosi. It was the lead rain of our new country, Zimbabwe, sent to wash away us, the chaff. It was the state-sponsored murder of twenty thousand of your kin. How was our father to tell you that? How was he to tell you that within that number were the only two people he ever really loved?

On reading this, I was compelled to look it up, it’s not a story you want to linger on, nor are they images you want to see. You don’t have to read far to learn that none of the perpetrators have been held accountable for the atrocities committed. Those implicated include many who became or are now senior political figures in the Zimbabwean government.

In an interview, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma when asked about setting her novel amidst the backdrop of this massacre, said:

“We speak about the Liberation War all the time. But when it comes to the genocide, it is always a matter of shutting it down,” she says, adding that by not addressing the psychological, social and communal issues, by not acknowledging people have died, healing cannot begin.

House of Stone “dzimba dza mabwe” or “Zimbabwe” in Shona comes from her personal quest to learn more about that dark spot in modern Zimbabwean history, the ethnic cleansing/genocide carried out against the Ndebele people in the early 1980s after the liberation struggle. The strengths of her characters come from an immersion into reading first hand personal accounts of people who survived that period, works that are not available in Zimbabwe, that she was able to access from the Iowa University library when she was studying her MFA.

Interested in the question of whether it is possible for a person, or a nation to rewrite itself, it will become the central motive of her flawed protagonist Zamani and finds that present day Zimbabwe has some parallels. Since the political coup that recently ousted Robert Mugabe, a new President has announced to the population that the past is dead.

When Tshuma began asking questions about the Gukurahundi of her immediate family, including her mother and Uncle, they were visibly upset – people continue to be haunted, they haven’t found closure for the dead, nor been able to process their experiences to heal from them.

I was reminded of the experience of reading Han Kang’s Human Acts a powerful novel that centered around the little known Gwangju massacre in South Korea in 1980, that she discovered by accident and became haunted by. It left her with pressing questions she explored through the novel.

Despite the traumatic events that haunt or affect every character, the plot of House of Stone moves swiftly with its well fleshed out characters, sense of mystery, its rage, outrage and her own brand of wit – including the hypocritical Reverend who Zamani doesn’t trust.

Did that Reverend Nobody really think he could take me on? Did he really think he could come out as the hero in all of this, mooching off my hard work, destroying my relations with my surrogate family.

It’s an accomplished novel that confronts harsh truths and pursues questions about the reinvention of a nation and the individual. A gifted storyteller who has been able to weave the essence of those personal narratives into richly formed characters that goes some way towards acknowledging a history no-one will talk about.

Bereft of redemption, a feeling that pervades the narrative and one that seems to hold many in its grip today worldwide.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a 4.5 read for me.

Powerful, exquisitely affecting, blisteringly honest

House of Stone is an impressive debut that examines the integration and recreation of personal and national identities through the lens of one “family” from the dissolution of Rhodesia, the birth of Zimbabwe, and what being a nation entails.

It is through the lens of the hopeful wily protagonist Zamani and his obsessive need to immerse himself into the family history of his landlords in order to re-create his “his-story” that makes this storyline so poignant.

While the violence is brutal it is well-balanced by the lively luminous prose as Tshuma deftly weaves the historical and personal into a seamless chronicle and provides a testament to the “culture of enforced amnesia.”

At the end, I was so appreciative of how cleverly this story not only engaged me into the lives of these compelling characters, provided a thought-provoking history lessons but left me with an extraordinary reading experience of a place and time that is more universal than not.

This is a perfect example of how to write history into fiction.

I look forward to writing future works by Tshuma.

[Tommi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s House of Stone shows a boy called Zamani immersing himself in the family history of Abednego and Agnes, whose son Bukhosi has gone missing. To help the family in distress, our narrator Zamani, who is a somewhat mysterious figure, stays at their house and wants to learn more about the family’s history. In a series of flashbacks, told in turns by the surrogate father and the surrogate mother to Zamani, House of Stone presents the tumultuous history of colonial Rhodesia and what came after, the modern-day Zimbabwe.

Every page of the novel breathes history, there is no escaping it: colonialization as well as the internal conflicts in the country have obviously left marks on the characters, and often define them. Along with Tshuma’s fictional creations, real-life figures such as Cecil Rhodes (founder of Rhodesia) and Ian Smith (a long-time Rhodesian prime minister when the country was still led by a mostly white government) feature here. Unlike Négar Djavadi, who, in her recent novel Disoriental, made in a humorous way sure that the ignorant Western reader knows Iran’s history well enough by inserting footnotes, Tshuma trusts that the reader of her novel can make the journey through the book without too much bewilderment regarding Zimbabwean history.

While reading the novel, I found myself googling many of the intricacies of the country’s history, not out of irritation that hinders the reading experience but because of sheer curiosity. This, I believe, is thanks to Tshuma’s intriguing way of writing: I genuinely wanted to keep up with the story, to keep hearing her rollicking language. (Moreover, making the effort to learn something about a seemingly distant country and its people is, I think, the least we can do in our alienating and racist present.) As the narrator recalls a speech he once heard, “one can’t just exist passively in the twenty-first century. One has to be, actively, an ethical citizen of our global village, seeing in others the mirror of what he sees in himself – humanity – and in himself what he presupposes to be in others – inhumanity.” If the subject matter is often grave here, it is the exuberant language where one may find simpler pleasures while reading, and sometimes these two aspects overlap. Consider, for example, the mixture of the heavy subject and the lively prose here, in a passage dealing with one of the novel’s sort-of-antagonists:

Will I never be free of Black Jesus? Shan’t I ever be able to cleanse my blood of him? My past of him? The beast! Destined in life to be the henchman of a President, plagiarizing, during that terrible time right after our independence from white rule, the most creative ways of torture: severe-beatings hut-burnings asphyxiation falanga abnormal-body-positions rape dry-submarine electric-shocks lack-of-sleep immobilization constant-noises screams stripping excrement-abuse sham-executions and special-contraptions-copied-from-Pol-Pot-Dacko-Amin-and-perhaps-some-unnameable-elements-of-the-CIA-with-speculated-but-unconfirmed-blessings-from-jolly-Uncle-Sam.

Actual moments of violence are also depicted on the page, meaning that House of Stone definitely deserves a trigger warning or two. It is rare to encounter a character who is as terrifying as the above-quoted Black Jesus, Tshuma’s masterful creation of inhumane terror. But the novel is not a mere gorefest, and often the reader is kept on toes by action-packed scenes that could potentially result in brutality but they don’t, like here when the surrogate father’s first love Thandi is giving birth in quite an unusual situation:

But she couldn’t run, poor Thandi, she couldn’t run and instead her trembling legs gave way. It was then, as my surrogate father stared into Death’s ochre eyes, that my inamorata’s water broke and trickled down her thighs, that a Khoi San woman leapt out of the scraggly bush, out of nowhere she leapt thrusting herself between the lovers and the lion, my surrogate father tried to scream but couldn’t find his voice, my inamorata found her voice and screamed, the woman bared her teeth and barked, the beast bared its gums and snarled, the baby was coming, the Khoi San woman was hissing, Thandi was groaning, the lion was growling, she spread her legs, it licked its nose, she fisted her hands, it shook its mane, she began to cry, and off it sauntered.

Talk about suspense. House of Stone is a fascinating blend of history, storytelling, violence, love, patriarchy, and unreliable narration. Perhaps it could have done with some more editing in the sense that I find it at points too long or repetitive (I wonder whether a, say, 70-page cut would have made it a more concise novel) but it is, nonetheless, an intriguing novel by a new voice, a novel deserving of more attention that is has gotten so far. I must also commend the physical hardback edition by Atlantic Books, not only for its sweet design but for being one of those sturdy books that stay open on whatever page you want without touching it with your hands. I am happy that Tshuma’s novel has been treated so well by Atlantic, because it is well deserved.

Written for the Helsinki Book Review.

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some really amazing writing! Read it in one day :)

I appreciate that there is a fair amount of subtext in this book, that I may get because I grew up in that part of Zimbabwe. For that reason, I'm extremely impressed with how this story was written, and with its complexity. Also, while the traumatic parts are very difficult to read, they are handled in a straightforward (almost clinical) way.

At her launch in Harare, someone asked her about Dambudzo Marechera's influence on her writing, and she acknowledged that. I see that, too.

So, not a perfect book (- does such a thing exist??), and not one to "like" - it's too challenging for that. But really very well done, and again - amazing writing.

[Anne Goodwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

House of Stone is psychologically, historically, culturally and literarily impressive, especially for a first novel, and a strong contender for my growing list of stellar reads of the year.
Full review
http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post/...

[Inderjit Sanghera · Rating 4 out of 5]

the cruelty of the colonial powers they replaced. This is most apparent when the budding revolutionary Thandi  is shaken when she experiences the reality of rebellion after moving to the country. 

The recollection begins with the story of the naive Abednego and his somewhat improbable relationship with the beautiful and intelligent Thandi and Abednego's gradual moral fall as he becomes entangled in the freedom movement until he ends up becoming a murderer and rapist, a man whose past actions cause him to descend into a never-ending wave of alcoholism and bullying. In many ways Abednego's fall symbolises the descent of Zimbabwe's freedom movement from a yearning for liberation to the moral bankruptcy of Robert Mugabe. Along the way we meet a paraphernalia of characters, from the repugnant Black Jesus to Abednego's long-suffering wife Mama Agni or his dissident brother and the narrator Abed who slowly worms his way into Abednego and Mama Agni's life, burrowing his way into their home by pretending that he knows the whereabouts of their son Bukhosi. 

Indeed Abednego's narration of the present is increasingly disorienting for the reader, who like the other characters in the novel,  becomes entrapped in his web of half-truths and deception. 'House of Stone' is a fascinating exploration of Zimbabwe just as it begins its independence movement and the violence which overtakes the country as a result and which becomes deeply embedded in the culture of a country reeling from the brutality of the Mugabe regime. 

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tshuma creates an unusual character and uses him to explore issues of history, trauma and memory in 20th century Zimbabwe. I found this book both challenging and highly readable, with beautiful writing, clever construction and a semi-comic tone despite the occasional horrors. It kept me off base and unsettled the whole way through. Definitely an author to watch.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

House of Stone by Zimbabwean author Novuyo Rosa Tshuma was the Winner of the Edward Stanford Prize for Fiction with a Sense of Place 2019, Longlisted for Rathbones Folio Prize 2019, Shortlisted Orwell Prize 2019, and Shortlisted for Dylan Thomas Prize 2019.

The main character is Zamani, a young Zimbabwean man, who finding himself without home or family tries to inviegle himself into the home of Abednego and Agnes Mlambo, after their son Bukhosi goes missing. He attempts to replace the longed for son, to gain their trust, and prise apart their family histories and secrets. In doing so we are taken back through Zimbabwean history through the 1970s and 1980s.

The story traces the history of the fledgling nation of Zimbabwe, although in broad brush strokes and a slightly confusing back-and-forth fashion which requires some after-reading research to untangle. The Rhodesia region was originally annexed by the British South Africa Company under Cecil Rhodes after conquering Mashonaland in 1890 and seizing Matabeleland in 1893 from the Matabele people. In 1923 Southern Rhodesia was formed as a self governing British colony until in 1965 when the white separatist government declared independence from Britain and became Rhodesia. There was guerilla warfare for the next 15 years with Black Nationalist forces until a peace treaty and formation of the nation of Zimbabwe in 1980 (the name being translated Houses of Stone). Robert Mugabe was elected as prime minister. The two main Black Nationalist groups had been the ZAPU under Mugabe, consisting mainly of Shona people, and the ZANU under Joshua Nkomo, mainly made up of Mathebele peoples including the Ndebele and Kalanga. The Gukurahundi massacres which featured heavily in this book, were reprisals by the armed forces of ZAPU, particularly the North Morean trained Fifth Brigade, under instruction from Mugabe, eliminating any “dissidents” from Nkomo’s opposing party, but ending in the torture, rape, burning and genocide of at least 20,000 men, women and children. The Gukurahundi means "the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains,” later described by Mugabe as “a moment of madness.”

This book reinforced why I often don’t get on with prize winning literature. It was a difficult read, and took me half the book before I was able to settle into it at all. None of the characters were at all likeable, Zamani was a manipulative psychopath, Abednego was a violent drunk, and it was impossible to care about any of them. The story shifted abruptly from setting to setting, to different eras, and between reality and dream like states with little warning. There was graphic onscreen violence, rape and torture, obviously consistent with the historical reality. Disappointingly though, I probably learned more from my google search afterwards, but I guess at least the book inspired me to do that.

[Imi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A novel that I believe would benefit from multiple re-reads and research into the historical events at its centre: that is, the dissolution of colonial Rhodesia and the birth of modern-day Zimbabwe. Realistically, though, I cannot see myself having the desire or energy to do that anytime soon. This is the kind of history you find yourself unable to linger on. Tshuma examines the turmoil of recreating a nation's entire personal identity through the lens a single married couple, Abednego and Agnes, following the disappearance of their teenage son. The couple are manipulated and coerced into reliving past traumas, mainly from the Gukurahundi massacres into the 1980s, by our strange and mysterious narrator, Zamani. I spent most of the novel very confused about who exactly he was and, most importantly, about his motives. While I appreciated his role as a framing device and as a mystery that gives the reader some relief from the horrifying and violent flashbacks, I also felt this led to a rather slow and cumbersome narrative. Answers about Zamani only really start to emerge very late on, in the book's relatively short final section. In addition, I also felt Zamani's narration kept the reader at a distance Abednego and Agnes' characters. They felt underdeveloped as characters by the end, which is ironic considering Zamani's desperate aim of immersing himself in the family and its history, in order to somehow supplant their own son. In sum, this debut has some really impressive ideas and deals with some very difficult historical themes, but perhaps felt overly long and clumsy to me in parts.

[Liz Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most skilfully told tale I have read in a long time, that gets under your skin, crawling about, leaving traces of discomfort and dis-ease. Highly, highly recommended!

An epic told with not a word out of place. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma weaves a story like a spider weaves its web. An outline is provided, details partially filled in, and layers are added as the tale is told. Hunches are confirmed, or rejected, with the narrator firmly in control for the duration of the book.

It begins: "A man of consciousness, gifted with a mind and a blank screen and a keyboard such as I have, makes his own hi-story proper". The narrator is not sympathetic to the ear or the intellect, but he is a gifted storyteller and marionette operator. The book can be opened to any paragraph and the language leaps off the page. There is nothing pedestrian, and everything enchanting.

The story is set in contemporary Zimbabwe with reference to the struggle for independence and the rise of Mugabe. Zamani lives in a pygmy room at the back of the house where Bukhosi live/d with his parents. The disappearance of Bukhosi is the pretext the narrator uses to wheedle his way into the affections of Abednego and Mama Agnes, two people he calls his surrogate parents in the absence of his own. Zamani plies Abed with whisky and pulls out of him stories of his coming of age, and life before Zamani knew them. Zamani then uses his allure to pull out of Mama Agnes stories of her life. Connections are made later on in the story and reasons are uncovered, but this truly is a tale that is every bit about the journey as about the ending.

[Kiprop Kimutai · Rating 5 out of 5]

House of Stone was an astounding read. I could see Novuyo's ambition here. She wrote a book about Zimbabwe, but not just about Zimbabwe's historical reality but the imagination that went alongside that reality. This exhibits itself very well in the titular character Zamani, in whose mind, thoughts and imaginations we are constantly engaging, and are therefore privileged to know his hopes, his desires and how he carefully, and cruelly, manipulates his world. His character arch, in a way, signifies how countries tactfully choose stories that are told in order to beat its citizens into form. I love the book for its fluidity, its resonating language and its boldness; we are not just seeing Africans doing, we see them 'being', we see them 'thinking' and most importantly we see them 'imagining their lives.'

[Esme Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was serving if Louis de Bernières wrote Lolita and it was directed by Jordan Peele vibes. A bit slow to start, and once you push thru the fact that all the characters are inherently unlikeable, this actually slaps. Chronology and storytelling on point, the way the story unfolds is mysterious and creeepy. AND OBSESSED W THE ENDED: CHILLING AND CREEPY AND DAAAARKKKK.

Also facts needed to know more about Rhodesia/Zimbabwe’s independence movement to follow the key players, but double facts colonisation is the fuckin WORST.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took longer than it should have to read House of Stone by Zimbabwean author Novuyo Rosa Tshuma. Weird, confusing, but fascinating too, it seems to be grounded in an oral storytelling tradition with a narrator who’s pulling the strings in an anarchic sort of way. Zamani is definitely in charge of the narrative, breaking in every now and again to confide in the reader that he is orchestrating events in the present while extracting from unwilling witnesses their stories of the past. But he is also manipulating the reader in order to gain sympathy for himself…

The story begins with the disappearance of 19 year-old Bhokasi. His parents, Abed and Agnes are distraught (as any parents would be in the chaos of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe) so they are vulnerable to Zamani’s upbeat assurances that all will be well, even though he knows full well that Bhokasi was hauled into a police van during a demo. He doesn’t tell them that because he is scheming to become their adopted son…

According to the Bantu philosophy of Ubuntu, the belief in a universal bond of sharing involves a communal pedigree. Each person, Zamani tells us, needs a hi-story, and must be able to trace his lineage through two generations, to a grandfather. And as the would-be revolutionary Thandi explains to her would-be lover, their stories should be told:

“And now, the valour of our people and the glory of the Mthwakazi Nation lives on not in any history book, or in any official account, where we are nothing but savages without culture, without history or glory or anything worth mentioning or passing on,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest. “I heard the stories from my father, passed down to him by his father, my grandfather, and which I shall one day pass down to my children.” (p.53)

But Zamani does not know his lineage. He was brought up by Uncle Fani after the death of his mother, and the imposed collective silence about the atrocity in which she died means that he does not even know how she died, or more ominously, who his father was. Abed does not know who his father was either, and the suggestion that it might be a neighbouring white farmer sends him into alcoholic rages and violence against his wife Agnes. These people are emblematic of the way Zimbabwe’s violent pre- and post-colonial history is at odds with its ancient tribal traditions.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/01/05/h...

[Aimee Dars · Rating 4 out of 5]

During a political rally in Zimbabwe, Bukhosi Mlambo disappeared. Desperate to locate their son, they are vulnerable to the attentions of their lodger, Zamani, who is only seven years older than Bukosi. Zamani, an orphan, tries to become the Mlambo’s missing son, willing to go to desperate lengths to maintain his proximity to the family.

Unreliable, at times, Zamani, an orphan, believes he is a more worthy son than Bukosi. In other cases, he is more deliberately cruel to the parents in order to rewrite his own history and in turn remake his past. He misreads and misreports his own and other’s motivations and misunderstands people’s emotions and attitudes. As a result, he’s completely unreliable and completely fascinating.

History, memory, storytelling, and the right to declare the truth play an important role not only for Zamani and the Mlambo family. The country itself struggles with the same issues. After Zimbabwe gained independence, two nationalistic parties struggled for power during the Rhodesian Bush War. The national army under Robert Mugabe systematically killed Ndebele people ostensibly because they were dissidents, but in actuality because they supported the rival political party and Mugabe feared their opposition.

The book is not easy emotionally to read first because Zamani represents an unsympathetic character with whom it is difficult to empathize and second because of the terrible and graphic atrocities Abednego and Agnes experienced, and at times committed, in the aftermath of independence. Although I found certain sections slow, particularly Abednego’s teen and young adult years, once more characters were introduced and their secrets unfurled, the novel became surprising and unrelenting.

While I don’t think this is a universally appealing book, I am extremely glad I read it. I didn’t know anything about Zimbabwe’s Bush War and genocide, and though the descriptions were horrific, I thought it only fitting to fill the role of witness as uncomfortable as that might be. Additionally, as much as I despised Zamani, as a narrator, he was completely spellbinding.

House of Stone should find it audience among readers interested in African history, colonialism, genocide; those who find stories about history, memory, and identity compelling; and those who are fond of reading books from the perspective of unreliable narrators.

[Whitlaw Tanyanyiwa Mugwiji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Albert Camus once said, “fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth”. This novel, tells a truth that has been obscured by reality. Even though many Zimbabweans have heard about Gukurahundi, very few Zimbabweans, save for the actual victims and the perpetrators of these atrocities, know the gory details of what happened then. Novuyo Tshuma did not just write a good book but rewrote the many untold horrors stories of Gukuruhundi.

This is a book about Gukurahundi, yet it is much more than about Gukurahundi. A story narrated by Zamani about his surrogate family. Interweaving the personal stories of this family with the greater national history of Zimbabwe, starting from the pre-independent Zimbabwe and ending during the post land reform period. Even though Zamani was manipulative and at times psychotic, I could not help but to hate, love and feel pity for him at the same time. How could he have survived Gukurahundi without any psychological scars.

By and large it is a great book, entertaining and educating at the same time. I particularly liked how the author brought to life the tragedy of Gukurahundi, which I had come to know only as statistics. Novuyo's prose is amazing, almost poetic, yet during few moments, I felt she was over doing it, writing for the sake of writing. Perhaps, she was enjoying her prose too, I cannot fault her for that, her prose is just beautiful and it was her debut novel, so its a learning curve, if it was not for that I would have given the book 5 stars.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book from Bookbrowse.com in return for a First Impressions review.

Narrator Zamani, an orphan himself, attempts to attach himself to a family (Abednigo and Agnes) with whom he boards and whose 17-year-old son has recently disappeared. His approach seems to be to collect the family history and adopt it as his own, so he becomes a surrogate son. He collects this history through all kinds of trickery and manipulation, playing on Abednigo's alcoholism, plying him with drugs, and emotionally manipulating Agnes, although I was never clear on why he felt the need to take this approach. Since the family story is tied to the downfall of Rhodesia and the rise of Zimbabwe, there's a good bit of historical (and unpleasant) information contained in those stories. The telling of them is scattered , not chronological, and confusing. There are extraneous characters and complicated flashbacks, including a strange emotional relationship between Zamani and his vision of Abednigo's first wife. I found reading this book to be a pretty unsatisfying experience, and although the general topic of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe revolution is of interest to me, this is not the way I would chose to experience it.

[Skip · Rating 2 out of 5]

A struggle in many ways. The transition from white ruled Rhodesia to black ruled Zimbabwe was turbulent, with senseless killings, pillaging, rapes, theft, etc. and author Tshuma does not shy away from these events. The protagonist Zamani is an orphan, who is trying to inveigle his way into the family of his landlords, seeking to capitalize on the disappearance of their son. The back stories of all of the characters are dark, with heinous acts for which they need to atone. I was glad to finish this one.

The book also needed a glossary for readers.

[David Kenvyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gukurahundi is not a word that is known in this country, at least not in the way that we know the words Holocaust or Genocide or Massacre. It is, however, a seminal event in the history of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. It was when Robert Mugabe sent the fifth brigade of the Zimbabwe Army, a brigade that had been trained by the North Koreans, into the area around Bulawayo and murdered thousands of his political opponents in the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). It was an event that set Zimbabwe along a path of repression from the mis-1980s until last year when Mugabe was forcibly removed from power. It is an event that stills hangs its shadow over Zimbabwe. It is an event that is central to this book, although the book is not set in the actual time of the massacres. It is set in the present day, looking at how Zimbabwe and particularly the people around Bulawayo are dealing with the consequences of what happened.

Bukhosi has gone missing. His parents, Abed and Agnes, begin to look for him. It gives nothing away to say that Bukhosi has fallen a victim to those opposed to his secessionist politics. This is made clear from the start. It is just that Abed and Agnes do not realise this, and do not look in the right places. What follows is a story of deception, of power plays and of people struggling to do the right thing, if only for themselves.

To describe the main character as manipulative gives no real idea of how self-serving and self-obsessed he actually is. His whole purpose is to make sure that his life is a comfortable as it possibly can be, even if that means lying about the whereabouts of Bukhosi, which he does with consummate skill.

I will not say any more about the plot. Let us look at the language. There is no doubt that Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a skilled writer. She uses language that sweeps you along with the story, and she never lets you forget that Gukurahundi is the underlying theme of the story, the motor on which everything else depends.

There is one difficulty with the language. There is no glossary for the Ndebele words that are peppered throughout the tale. This was not a problem for me because I have spent a considerable amount of my life around the offices of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and I know what words like bhundu (the sticks) and mfana (boy) mean. Most people will not have a clue, and that will make it difficult for them to understand some parts of the book. This, however, is a fault of the publisher and not of the author. It would not have been difficult to provide a glossary, and it should have been done.

Apart from that, however, anyone who wants to understand what is happening in modern Zimbabwe, or even modern Africa, should read this book. It will give you an insight that others will not have.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, about a young man’s deranged pursuit of a family of his own, tells a Zimbabwean story that is so important, and so timely with the Mugabe chapter of their history having so recently come to a close. The protagonist, a child of the Gurkahundi massacre, uses any means necessary to obtain the family denied to him by the brutality of the regime. Sounds good right? It was. Eventually. But it took the first half of the book, and some very stilted writing, to begin to tell the trauma story that binds the characters in this dark relationship of lies and fear and blackmail and death and force. The build up was so much, not in suspense, but in wandering into the story, that I almost left the book to read something else. I’m glad in the end that I stuck it out, and I’m excited to see more Zimbabwean literature available in the global world, but i wish that editing had helped to deliver a novel that showed itself more consistently from beginning to end. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC, opinions are my own.

[Tundra · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars. Zamani, the narrator of this story, is a deeply unpleasant character who is trying his best to manipulate his way into the lives of Abednego and Mama Agnes. He has befriended their son, Bukhosi, who has disappeared in mysterious circumstances and he is now plying Abednego with alcohol and drugs in order to get him to talk about his family hi-story and preying on Agnes’s desperation to find her son. The revelations that they share with Zamani propel the reader through the pre and post independence era of Zimbabwe and exposes the corruption, murder and rape that left people damaged and struggling to determine their identity.

“I too have lived through the dread of the glint of recognition. Of having to stare into a face and be faced with the truth of your own face.”

This is a complex and powerful story. It did take me awhile to sink into but then there was no turning back. You really want to understand what has happened to Bukhosi and what has motivated Zamani to destroy this family.

[Carolyne Gathuru · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author did a good job of depicting the extents to which derangement and delusionalism can go in the light of the need for philia from family and the need to belong.

And that is just about where it all ends.

What a difficult read? I felt like the author was struggling to write from a man's perspective and to think and 'act' like Zamani. The other struggle was in the writing style - too many zoom outs to illusionary thought up scenes played out from others' perspectives that if cut out of the book would not serve to create any dent.

The 'shocking twists' - Mrs. Thornton's murder, Mama Agnes illicit activity, Bhukosi's capture - did not make for the 'aha' moments they were possibly designed for, and the language throughout the book was extremely complex with numerous twists.

For lack of wanting to place in the 'not finished' shelf, I trudged on to the end.

To be fair though - the book has the history of Zimbabwe in its time of transition and provides insights into the goings on, so if this is an area of interest, the book will feed that curiosity.

[Michael O'Donnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unlikable read. A powerful graphic story of the transition of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. Sometimes the language and scene creation where exotic and fresh. Sometimes it devoloved into flowery prose. The main character was a sociopath. I so wanted it to be different. The surrogate father was a mash up of conflicted characters leaving him unbelievable. Atrocities committed for misguided and overinflated passion. Corruption of state, church and the individual

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

In House of Stone, Abednego and Agnes’ son, Bukhosi, has gone missing and their lodger, Zamani, is trying to insert himself into the family in Bukhosi’s absence. In a disturbing and manipulative way, you see Zamani hide what he knows about Bukhosi’s disappearance while essentially trying to convince each of the parents to tell them the story of their past, their “hi-story” so that he can know the secrets that the family keeps and feel a part of their family dynamic. There is a lot, though,that Zamani is hiding about his own past and you watch the threads of the past weave their way into the present until they collide. Through the telling of this family story, Tshuma explores the recent history of Zimbabwe and the impact of that turmoil and rebellion on everyday lives. So much of the relationships in here - personal and political - rely on forgetting - and the authors showcases how that impacts the generations. I appreciated the way that the author echoed the turbulence of the country and the impact of colonialism in the relationships of the family.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive debut novel and a great piece of historical fiction. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a novel which can teach me about history through the lives of individual people, I feel it’s a way to learn that connects you more to the people experiencing it. The self-assured, somewhat psychopathic narrator and his determination to insert himself into this family provided a kind of relief from the traumatic events recounted by those around him. A story of generational oppression passed between hands, and how trauma can manifest itself in different ways in different people. A book has not kept me this engaged in a long time, but I’m very glad I savoured it.

[Sipho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has there ever been a more unlikeable narrator?

This book is haunting, disturbing and powerful. Saddening too.

Written from the perspective of Zamani, an orphan, who finds himself lodging at what once was his uncle's house, I guess you could call this book historical fiction.

We pick up the story from the point where, Bukhosi, the son of the tenants has gone missing. As the story progresses, Zamani's attempts to ingratiate himself to the family unearth their memories of Gukurahundi and reveal how all of their lives are connected.

The writing is...well, excellent. Gruesome at times. The realities of what the Gukurahundi genocide did, not just to its victims, but to its survivors and to the national psyche is viscerally explored here. Its tough to read and yet almost impossible to put down.

I'm still reeling...

[Tripfiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweeping novel set in RHODESIA / ZIMBABWE



Young Bukhosi has been captured by the police at the Mthwakazi rally, observed by the lodger of the household, Zamani. Where has he been taken? Will he ever come back?

Zamani, whilst Bukhosi is missing, is busy inveigling himself into Bukhosi’s family, and his parents Agnes and Abed are already becoming Zamani’s surrogate parents.

Zamani knows how to ingratiate himself and takes Abed’s drinking in hand, determined to keep a wary eye on the bottles as he encourages Abed to unfurl the family history over a glass or two of Johnnie. That’s just what Bukhosi would have done, observes Mum Agnes….Zamani is thus well ensconced.

Zamani gradually becomes the astute observer and chronicler of his adopted family, eliciting backstories set against the often brutal history of the country, first under the white rule of Ian Smith, then during the violent rise to power of Mugabe and Nkomo. Sovereignty shifts and so do the fortunes and stories of those being chronicled.

There is mercurial Thandi who back in the 1970s stole many a heart and still exerts a hold over the present generation. She effectively becomes the chronicler’s inamorata. He gradually builds up a picture of his surrogate family through refugee and guerrilla camps, war, through to independence on 17 April 1980. The family’s white ancestor Farmer Thornton – a dispirited Rhodie – watched forlornly as the proverbial sands shifted. A new country was emerging – to violence and the Gukurahundi Massacres.

This is an ambitious debut novel, divided into 3 books, that sweeps through Zimbabwe’s recent history, the prose suffused with local idiom and flavour. The reader will learn about the country and understand a little of the history, richly described with insight and oftentimes with humour. However, the reflective narrative did not really draw me in. In many ways it was breathless, layering detail upon detail and overall I rather struggled to connect with the story. I can however see how many will find the style and content engaging.

A good read for anyone who wants to get a feel and a sense of the recent history of the country. It is however anticipated that the reader already has a good sense of the country but for those who are uninformed (like me), a glossary of terms/words might have been helpful.

[Elle Khupe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an incredibly difficult book for me to read. Difficult because it was personal. It was devastating and it left me reeling. It's a story that needed to be told. It's a story that many people who, like me are from the part of Zimbabwe where this story is set, grew up hearing stories like this one, but there's something about seeing the story written down that's both powerful and heartbreaking. The writing style wasn't quite for me, thus rating of 3.5 rounded up to 4.

[Lukas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein herausforderndes Buch. Ich mochte es nicht, nicht wirklich. Die ambivalente Hauptfigur Zamani, durchtrieben und wenig nahbar, ein junger Mann mit vielen Vätern. Die Autorin Novuyo Rosa Tshuma spürt familiären Verwurzelungen seit der Unabhängigkeit und Gründung Simbabwes und dem damit einhergehenden Massaker (Gukurahundi) unter dem Präsident Mugabe in den 1980er nach. Schonungslos und brutal. Schriftstellerisch ein epochales Wagnis und eine gut 400-seitige Reise in das Herz Simbabwes, verstörend und trotz aller Abneigung ein sehr lesenswertes Buch. Im Grunde ging es mir als Leser ähnlich wie Familie Mlambo, die von Zamani perfide verführt wird, ...nur ich musste mich lediglich gegen seine erzählerische Vereinnahmung wehren, wohingegen die Familie Mlambo gezwungen wurde, sich mit ihrer Vergangenheit und erlittenen Traumata zu konfrontieren... niemand will zurück nach Bhalagwe oder in die Antelope Mine.

Ein weiteres großartiges Buch im Programm des kleinen feinen Verlags InterKontinental .

[Wendy Cosin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up after about 70 pages - this book just didn't work for me. The story of the fall of Rhodesia and the birth of Zimbabwe is told through the reluctantly shared reminiscences told to a young man desperate for family. I looked up some historic background so my lack of knowledge wouldn't be as much of a problem, but I still had trouble following what seemed disjointed and not very interesting. Looking at other people's reviews, I see that there is more to this novel than I appreciated - perhaps if I had read more of it, but I have so many books calling to me.........

I received a free Advance Readers' Copy.