Transformations of a manfish: changing allegories for the 'njuzu' in Shona literature

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Periodical article

Title:	Transformations of a manfish: changing allegories for the 'njuzu' in Shona literature
Author:	Lilford, Grant
Year:	1999
Periodical:	Journal des africanistes
Volume:	69
Issue:	1
Pages:	199-219
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Zimbabwe
Subjects:	Shona Shona language literature
Abstract:	Christopher Tagwireyi's 'Dziva reNjuzu' (1980) and Wiseman Magwa's 'Njuzu' (1991) represent different uses of the figure of the 'njuzu', or water person, in contemporary Shona literature (Zimbabwe). The 'njuzu', half man and half fish, is a traditional personage in Shona oral literature. It is usually an ambivalent figure, with a capacity for extremes of good and evil. It does good deeds by training people to be 'n'ganga' (traditional healers), but it can also steal people from their families and, in some cases, destroy them. Tagwireyi's narrative, which is set in an idealized precolonial period, focuses on the positive aspects of the 'njuzu', treating it as a catalyst for social change. Magwa's play, whose story takes place during and following the war of liberation, presents the 'njuzu' as a negative figure which conspires with a hostile world against the hero. Each author suggests that supernatural forces integrate themselves into the wider society as expressions of the 'zeitgeist' of a particular period in Zimbabwean history. While Tagwireyi offers the optimism of the early 1980s, Magwa brings out the cynicism of the nineties. Bibliogr., note, ref., sum. in English and French.