1 LAND AND IDENTITY IN ZIMBABWEAN FICTION WRITINGS IN ENGLISH FROM 2000 TO 2010: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This thesis uses African-centred frameworks to critically analyse how selected black and white Zimbabwean-authored fictional narratives published between 2000 and 2010 against the backdrop of Zimbabweans ’ post-2000 land redistribution processes depict and project issues of land and identity in the post-independence phase. The process and phase that provides the background to both fictional narratives and its criticism in this study have been canonised as jambanja across the racial divide. Jambanja and its aftermaths have generated immense controversy leading to a new wave of post-colonial literature that deals with land. Given the multipronged and interdisciplinary nature of land as a subject, including the perennial human and social problems that it has caused from pre- to post-independence Zimbabwe, the researcher took field visits to familiarise herself with geophysical and population demography of Zimbabwe. Field visits and interviews with some writers and other stakeholders added insights that desk-research alone might not have produced given that the writers examined deal with land redistribution that is still unfolding. Analyses showed that land re/possession and dis/placements, like slavery, are better appreciated from the vantag