ABSTRACT
Shorn, spoken by perhaps 10 million people, is the main Bantu language of Zimbabwe, and belongs to the Bantu zone S group that includes all major Bantu languages of southern Africa. Three central dialects – Zezuru, Karanga and Manyika – go together to make up the standard language, with Zezuru perhaps dominant due to its geographical proximity to the capital Harare. Shona was relatively late in acquiring written language status; the translation of the New Testament was not published until 1907. At the same time, as large numbers of Shona students were learning to write Shona, it became increasingly obvious that there was nothing for them to read – a situation aptly summed up by the Shona scholar George Kahari as ‘literacy without literature’ (quoted in Gérard 1981). Novels reflecting social problems in the colonial situation, by such writers as Solomon Mutswairo, Herbert Chitepo and Patrick Chakaipa, soon began to appear. Since the transformation of Southern Rhodesia into the state of Zimbabwe, conflicts and tensions arising in the new social structure – for example the clash between urbanization and traditional village life, and the ambivalent role played by Christianity – have been taken up by Paul Chidyausiku, John Marangwanda and Kenneth Bepswa, among others. Worthy of note among contemporary writers in Shona are the award-winning novelist Charles Mungoshi and the poet and translator Chirikure Chirikure.
