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Book Review: Chanakira poignantly charts a librarian’s fraught journey

Opinion & Analysis
Book Title: “Tonderayi’s Way. Memories of a Diaspora Librarian” Author: Tonderayi Wilfred Chanakira

Book Title: “Tonderayi’s Way. Memories of a Diaspora Librarian” Author: Tonderayi Wilfred Chanakira

THIS book is a “must read” for librarians, documentalists, archivists and historians.

The book is set in colonial Rhodesia, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and some European and African countries which shaped a librarian’s life and career.

The plot of the story starts at a graveyard where a librarian’s grandmother is being buried.

The librarian is devasted by the death of his grandmother who was the soul of his upbringing.

He is provoked to retrace his birth circumstances by personifying his birth certificate as explained to him by his dead grandmother. He enters into a dream-like psycho-analysis of his upbringing at a farm living with his dead grandmother.

The name of the farm is personified in the pseudonym of the librarian’s grandfather. The librarian narrates his story as he remembers his life at the farm.

The passion for hunting is a central way of life as the librarian survives farm life. The librarian observes traditional rituals as a way of life at the farm.

Great nationalists who fought for the struggle to liberate Zimbabwe pass by the farm on their way to Mozambique under the support of a Miss Mitchell, who is a very strong character in the book.

The same nationalists are given refuge and use Miss Mitchell’s house as their base when they come back from Mozambique to participate in the country’s general election in 1980.

The librarian suddenly realises that there is a war of liberation going on in his country as reflected in the people whom Miss Mitchell associates with at various circumstances in his relationship with Miss Mitchell.

The librarian is put into a boarding school which he never likes and rebels out of the boarding school.

Miss Mitchell enrols the librarian in a multiracial school environment where he faces subtle racism as practised by some white teachers at his school.

This hardens the librarian to take refuge in wanting to pass his Ordinary Level exams to get out of this racist school. The librarian passes his exams and finds his way to another multiracial school again to read for his “A” Levels.

The librarian does not do well in his first “A” Level exams and goes back to his rural upbringing to work as a temporary teacher.

The librarian resits and passes his “A” Level exams whilst working as a temporary teacher in the rural areas and immediately enrols at the varsity where he experiences university campus life with all its vices while living with his uncle, Archie, who is another strong character who shapes the librarian’s life.

A woman director influences the librarian to like the profession by exposing the librarian to international librarianship as he works in Harare. The librarian goes to study abroad in India having just married.

He comes back from his studies in India to work at a university, but does not stay for long and resigns to join a trade organisation. It is this trade organisation that brings the best out of the librarian as he travels abroad to appreciate librarianship at an international level and exposure.

The librarian becomes great friends when he meets a famous fellow countryman footballer during one of his trips abroad and gets to know of the politics of national football affecting his country. The librarian is nostalgic about how life used to be so good in one of the cities that he grew up in his country. The political meltdown in Zimbabwe forces the librarian to go and work in another country as a Diaspora librarian.

The librarian experiences xenophobia in that country and is forced to go back to his country where he survives as a businessman driving a lorry.

Once again, another economic meltdown affects the birth country of the librarian forcing the librarian to get into a kombi in search of a job in another country.