On Not Being Wilbur Smith: The Challenges of The White African Writer

It took me a long time to realise that my birth in Africa was not accidental, that growing up in Zimbabwe was not a wrong that had to be put right by leaving the country, and that continuing to live here, to have my children born here, and to call myself an African writer was not a wild, audacious statement that should be corrected and apologised for. It took me a long time to call this continent my home.

    Like many white people in Africa, I grew up straddling two worlds. I read Enid Blyton and looked for fairies and elves amongst the bougainvillea and mango trees.  I thought snake holes would take me to the Mad Hatter's tea party.  Christmas in the heat and humidity of December always felt wrong; we should have snowmen and mistletoe, go sledging and sing Christmas carols wrapped in scarves and coats. The two worlds were something we took in our stride without much questioning.  We knew how to navigate them, how to be both white and African at the same time.

    Yet it was also a time of uncertainty.  I was six years old at Independence in 1980 and, as such, was part of the first generation of white children to experience social change in the country.  The white people who made the decision not to emigrate withdrew from the government and the public sector. As the young Zimbabwe grew and reclaimed itself after a hundred years of colonisation, whites stepped back into the shadows, occasionally emerging to grumble and mumble, but in general keeping quiet. Whereas my parents' and grandparents' generations knew what it meant to be a Rhodesian, the definition of what it meant to be Zimbabwean - and white - was not so well-defined in an age where being in white in general was coming under more and more scrutiny and criticism.

    Another wave of whites left during the land invasions of 2000 and the subsequent descent into hyper-inflation and economic instability.  If the world was sympathetic to the violence against white farmers that they saw on their television screens, they certainly didn't show it.  Despite the corruption, the chaos and the lack of thought that had gone into Mugabe's overnight decision to seize white-owned farms, many still thought it was justified.  The whites must, at some point, taken the land and therefore it must be returned to its 'real' owners, and whatever they wanted to do with it was up to them.  The implication was clear: white people could never be true citizens of Zimbabwe; they are always here as the oppressor or descendants of their oppressive forefathers.  

   
It is hard then to think of what it means to be a white Zimbabwean.  A metaphorical foot is always somewhere else.  If someone asks you where you come from, the inevitable question that follows your answer is always 'But where are you really from'? And if you are not asked where you are from, the question is about where you are going - because your life here is quite obviously temporary. 

    Being a white African comes with many assumptions: you are racist, you are entitled, you are lazy, but, most of all, that you are wrong. Yet there is also a curiosity about white life. When I lived in the UK, I became used to the most ridiculous range of questions, like how many slaves did my family own? Did I live in a mud hut? What was life like living amongst wild animals? It is therefore no surprise that books such as Mukiwa by Peter Godwin and Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller have done well.  White authors are allowed to write memoir - as long as they no longer live in Africa.  They are allowed to dwell on idyllic or dysfunctional childhoods as long as they are writing from the distance of time and place.  As long as they can describe their childhood and then say, 'I have acknowledged that my birth was an accident of history' and assure the world that they don't live here anymore.

    The other kind of white writing that is acceptable is the Wilbur Smith type of swash-buckling adventures and trophy hunting. Those of his books are set in colonial times do not question it: there is no angst or guilt attached to any of the characters who are allowed to adventure, discover and acquire to their hearts' desires. His stories are 'allowed' because they are not set in the here and now.

    Both Western publishers and readers have a fixed idea about Africa.  It is a place of famine, disease, poverty and struggle, and this must be confirmed by the writing that comes out of it.  It is hard to place white people into this picture unless as missionaries or land grabbing oppressors. The idea of white characters being 'normal' people doing 'normal' jobs, such as teaching, working in a bank or shop, or growing vegetables, doesn't strike the reader as real or believable. 

    The question is, is there room for the white writer who lives on the African continent?  My answer is yes, there is.  I spent a long time thinking that I was writing the wrong story or that I was in the wrong place, but nothing felt as wrong as when I considered being a writer in the UK. The characters, the stories, almost immediately vacated my mind and there was nothing I could do to summon them back. 

Africa is a vast continent with a myriad of different peoples and cultures.  As much as we need to move beyond the single story, we also need to move beyond the single author. There is a strength in being part of a minority and a value in having a different perspective and it is this perspective that I will continue to write from.