The Keresenzia Effect: The child killer in Chirere & Tagwira’s stories
When a society’s structures fall, when its economy crumbles and there are high levels of unemployment and unimaginable suffering, its children face the highest levels of danger such a society of presents. The whole fabric of this society is endangered, and its future plunges into uncertainty. This has been true to the Zimbabwean situation, whose effects have begun to reverbrate through the country’s new literature, which shows how the children are responding to the woes of their environment. The works of Memory Chirere and Valerie Tagwira shed some light on this issue, which this study presents as the Keresenzia Effect.
In 2007, Valerie Tagwira shocked us with “Mainini Grace’s Promises”, a powerful story about the ravages of HIV/Aids, in which the child character kills her aunt at the end. The reader can see the frustration in the girl, her anger at the broken promise of Mainini Grace, whose betrayal to the family is that she has fallen victim of the pandemic that has killed other members of the girl’s family. If Mainini should be the source of hope, why has she allowed herself to be a victim? In a fit of rage, her niece pushes her to the ground, killing her in the process. Read more
