Naming and Remembering the Unsayable: Reflecting Gukurahundi through Onomastic Strategies in Christopher Mlalazi’s Running with Mother and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s House of Stone

Gibson Ncube; Yemurai Gwatirisa

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Chapter 6 Naming and Remembering the Unsayable

Reflecting Gukurahundi through Onomastic Strategies in Christopher Mlalazi’s Running with Mother and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s House of Stone

In: Subversion, Resistance and Contestations

Authors:

Gibson Ncube

Gibson Ncube
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Yemurai Gwatirisa

Yemurai Gwatirisa
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 102–120

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004744493_007

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Abstract

Christopher Mlalazi’s Running with Mother (2012) and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s House of Stone (2018) are part of a growing body of literary texts that fictionalise the Gukurahundi genocide which took place in the early years of post-independence in Zimbabwe. This chapter examines the naming practices by Mlalazi and Tshuma and how these are important in negotiating Gukurahundi, which remains an unsayable issue in Zimbabwe. The main premise of this chapter is that, given how Gukurahundi remains unsayable and a generally sensitive topic, proper names and place names in the selected novels make it possible to think through and make sense of the complexities of this genocide, its traumas and horrors. The naming strategies in the two novels are tied into the thematics of violence, history, trauma and remembering. This chapter argues that Mlalazi and Tshuma’s onomastic strategies are linked to the narratological technique of the novels which seeks to make known and to remember experiences of Gukurahundi. If collective amnesia on Gukurahundi has been imposed on Zimbabweans, Mlalazi and Tshuma, through their innovative use of proper and place names, weave a plausible narrative that compels the remembering and rememoring of Gukurahundi. The chapter contends that proper names and place names are sites on and through which to read the violence of Gukurahundi as well as its diverse traumas and psychosocial effects.

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Subversion, Resistance and Contestations

The Politics of Names and Naming in Zimbabwe

Series: African Social Studies Series, Volume: 50

Cover Subversion, Resistance and Contestations

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004744493

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 26 Nov 2025

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Chapter 6 Naming and Remembering the Unsayable

Reflecting Gukurahundi through Onomastic Strategies in Christopher Mlalazi’s Running with Mother and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s House of Stone

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Subversion, Resistance and Contestations

The Politics of Names and Naming in Zimbabwe

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