Context
Tsitsi Dangarembga finished writing Nervous Conditions when
she was in her mid-twenties and, upon its publication in 1988, won widespread
critical acclaim for its complex and nuanced portrayal of the challenges that a
young Shona girl faces in her efforts to break free of her impoverished background
and acquire an education. “Shona” is the name given to various tribal groupings
living mostly in the eastern half of Zimbabwe, north of the Lundi River. In addition
to writing plays and screenplays, Dangarembga became the first Zimbabwean to direct
a feature-length film, releasing Everyone's Child in 1996. Despite
her varied aesthetic interests and successes, it is her novel that has opened her
voice and her unique vision to the widest audience.
Dangarembga was born in 1959 in a small town in Zimbabwe that was known as the
colony of Rhodesia. She lived in England from the ages of two to six while her
parents attended school there. Her initial education was conducted in the British
school system, and the young Dangarembga became fluent in English at the expense of
Shona, her native tongue. When she returned to her native land, she continued her
education after relearning Shona at a mission school. Later, she attended a private
American convent school in the city of Mutare.
In 1977, Dangarembga returned to England to study medicine. No longer a child
living in a foreign culture, she witnessed and fully understood the often racist or
racially stereotypical attitudes held by many members of English society. Returning
to Zimbabwe in 1980, just before the nation became self-governing and independent,
she began to develop in earnest as a writer. Despite years of rejection and lack of
acknowledgment, Nervous Conditions was eventually published in
England, four years after Dangarembga had completed it.
The events that shaped Dangarembga's early years loosely inform the life of
Tambu, the protagonist in Nervous Conditions. In one sense, the
novel is Dangarembga's attempt to analyze and better understand her emergence into
adulthood through the lens of fictional creation. However, Dangarembga's talents lie
in her ability to take the autobiographical details of her own life and transform
them into a multifaceted and highly realistic novel peopled with psychologically
rich and varied characters. This realism is the hallmark of Dangarembga's fiction.
While other African novelists directly confront the effects of colonialism and
gender discrimination, Dangarembga allows her characters to enact and dramatize the
pressures these forces inflict on their lives. In Nervous
Conditions, white characters make only the briefest of appearances.
Repressive figures are not distant or symbolic presences but the individuals found
within the same family unit. Rather than offering an epic sweep or grand historical
scale with which to frame her contemporary investigation, Dangarembga looks instead
to the effects and harm that foreign interference and sexism have on a single
African family.
In Nervous Conditions, Dangarembga focuses
in particular on a small group of women who struggle to be heard and to succeed in a
world that often aggressively seeks to silence and control them. Though in a way
these women are successful in their struggle, their victories are not grand. They do
not openly challenge the status quo, topple repressive systems, or alter prevailing
behaviors and ways of thinking. Instead, their victories lie in the strength they
muster to navigate a world that is unsympathetic to their concerns, and
their success is rooted in their unflinching desire to succeed where others have
readily failed.
