House of Stone

DEBUT In this strong first novel for Zimbabwe-born Tshuma, narrator Zamani possesses many qualities of the classically defined unreliable narrator, particularly deception. Desperate to create a family for himself, he exploits the grief and flaws of his landlords, Abednego and Mama Agnes Mlambo. Their only son, Bukhosi, has recently gone missing from their home in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which presents Zamani with the opportunity to assume Bukhosi's role and remake his own troubled history. Zamani pillages the couple's past to learn more of his would-be family's origins and uses their shame against them while gradually ingratiating himself into a position wherein he controls the story of Bukhosi's disappearance. As Zamani gleans details of the Mlambos' past, Tshuma chronicles the country's violent transformation from colonial Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, often translated as "house of stone" from the Shona. The graphic accounts provided by Abednego and Mama Agnes focus on the military massacres of civilians known collectively as Gukurahundi and are mercifully counterbalanced by Tshuma's poetical writing and her insertions of dark humor.