“Sweet Medicine takes place in Harare at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic woes in 2008. Tsitsi, a young woman, raised by her strict, devout Catholic mother, believes that hard work, prayer and an education will ensure a prosperous and happy future. She does well at her mission boarding school, and goes on to obtain a scholarship to attend university, but the change in the economic situation in Zimbabwe destroys the old system where hard work and a degree guaranteed a good life. Out of university, Tsitsi finds herself in a position much lower than she had set her sights on, working as a clerk in the office of the local politician, Zvobgo. With a salary that barely provides her a means to survive, she finds herself increasingly compromising her Christian values to negotiate ways to get ahead”.
Even though Chigumadzi has previously stressed that as much as Sweet Medicine is set in Zimbabwe, it is not a novel about Zimbabwe, this is still a Zimbabwean story. A lot of books (fiction and non-fiction) have been written about the economic woes in Zimbabwe by a number of authors who have since left the country for better opportunities in countries and continents with promising economies than dwindling. And so, one would be forgiven for being reluctant when it comes to approaching books set in Zimbabwe.
But fortunately it would seem that Chigumadzi was aware of this when she embarked on her writing journey and avoided falling into that trap. During an interview with the Business Day shortly after publishing her debut novel the young author said “I wanted to tell the complex story of the Zimbabwean situation through the eyes of characters like Tsitsi. Many books have been written about the Zimbabwean situation, but a lot of the books tended to tell this complex story, using the country itself as the main character, and not through ordinary people like Tsitsi. Unfortunately, such approaches tend to be didactive”.
This is the beauty of fiction writing. Every single author can write about the same theme but how they tell their story is what sets the different stories apart from each other. For instance, Chigumadzi writes about tradition and modernity; feminism and patriarchy; spiritual and political freedoms and responsibilities; poverty and desperation; and wealth and abundance in Sweet Medicine while an author like Tendai Huchu, for instance, in The Hairdresser Of Harare, mixes some of the themes above with themes like homosexuality. But what makes each of the books unique (even though they are both set in the same Zimbabwe and period) is the language used by the authors and how that language is used to absorb the reader into the stories.
A few days ago South Africa’s renowned author Zakes Mda and the author of Piggy Boy’s Blues, Nakhane Toure, were chatting to Fred Khumalo about their novels to a hall filled to the brim with readers from all walks of life. Mda was in the country launching his latest gripping historical novel, Little Suns. One of the audience members asked for his thoughts regarding the criticism directed at authors writing about the same subject over and over again to a point when it risks being redundant. His response addressed the paragraph above as he proudly said that he writes what he likes. He also dismissed those readers and critics by telling the audience that writers can write about the same subject but their angle and nuance will always differ. He defended writers too by indicating that authors get their material and inspiration from within their societies. Chigumadzi has also shown us this and no doubt more authors are still going to do the same as more and more books are being written about Zimbabwe.
Sweet Medicine is a marvelous book which will make you forget where you are and only see the Zimbabwe being so vividly painted in the book and through the eyes of the narrator. As narrated. In one of the scenes in the book, Tsitsi, the protagonist, remembers reading a book called “A Storm Is Brewing: Poems” when she was still a young girl herding cattle mostly with boys. She recalls how she struggled with the author’s (Kristina Rungano) “words, not only for the English, but also for their double and sometimes triple meanings”. Sweet Medicine is nothing like that. Yes, every sentence may have more than one meaning, but the reader does not struggle with the words at all except with the Shona in some parts for non-Shona speakers. But the author has previously said that we should all be able to understand Shona because there are more Shona speakers in South Africa than there are Chinese.
One of the themes that stand out in the book is how feminism is addressed. It is not thrown into your face or forced down the reader’s throat. Feminism, for some, is a personal journey where individuals are constantly unlearning old oppressive ways while learning new and freeing ways. It is not a matter of identifying as a feminist or not. And it can be said that this is the case with some of the characters in this novel. There isn’t a character loudly preaching about their values and stunts.
It is fascinating to travel with the women while observing their journeys to growth. It’s also amazing to watch them change their minds about different ways of living in order to adapt to circumstances.
When Zvobgo’s wife learns that her husband is in a relationship with a young girl, Tsitsi, she does not fight him or even allow the possibility of Tsitsi to be the second wife. She divorces him and leaves him to move in with Tsitsi while she goes and builds a new life of her own. When Tsitsi seduces Zvobgo, she has a choice to be poor and earn a meagre if not useless salary even with her Economics university qualification. But she chooses not to. When her friend Chiedza finds herself unemployed because of the current Zimbabwe they did not foresee when they went to University together, she also has the same choices as Tsitsi. But she opts for something else to survive. Something none of them ever bargained for whilst growing up.
And those are just a few examples of how fascinating it is to travel with the women while observing their journeys to growth. It’s also amazing to watch them change their minds as they move along and about different ways of living in order to adapt to circumstances. For instance, Tsitsi finds herself in a position where she must do whatever it takes to keep Zvobgo for her mother’s financial security. She finds herself going against her own Catholic beliefs by visiting a traditional healer in order to secure her future with Zvobgo. When the healer tells her she cannot fight an evil disease with Sweet Medicine, Tsitsi finds herself between a rock and a hard place but does whatever it takes to keep the comfortable life and benefits which come with being with a powerful (old) man of the elite in Zimbabwe. And so, perhaps the most outstanding and universal character about the characters is their ability to leave the reader with their own choice to decide “WHERE TO GO”.
Sweet Medicine might be a pretty thin novel physically but there’s more nuance in those few pages and the writing is absolutely beautiful.
About the Author
Panashe Chigumadzi is a young and upcoming media executive passionate about creating new narratives that work to redefine and reaffirm African identity. She is the founder and editor of Vanguard Magazine, a platform which aims to speak to the life of young black women coming of age in post-apartheid South Africa. She has previously worked as a TV journalist for CNBC Africa, a columnist for Forbes Woman Africa and a contributor to Forbes Africa. She has been invited to speak at a number of local and international events. In 2013 she became a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers community, a network of young people who strive to make an impact in their communities. Chigumadzi is a 2015 Ruth First Fellow at Wits University.
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By Siyamthanda Skota
@MrSkota