ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 shifts the main focus from literary depictions of movement within Zimbabwe to stories of transnational migration. At the centre of the discussion are two novels which portray migration between Zimbabwe and South Africa: Christopher Mlalazi’s novel Many Rivers (2009) portrays the experience of undocumented ‘border jumpers’ from the point of view of an impoverished young Zimbabwean who migrates from Bulawayo to Johannesburg. Ian Holding’s novel Of Beasts & Beings (2010) centres on a white teacher from Harare who is about to start a new job in South Africa and is packing up his life in Zimbabwe. This chapter considers these texts in relation to a radically nationalist discourse which insists on the discreteness of national space and the sharp division between home and foreign space. Although the protagonists of both novels leave Zimbabwe, the question of nationalism remains as important as in the previous chapters: maintaining power rests to a great extent on the sequestration of space within the nation, but also requires that people remain. Juxtaposing these two novels allows us to tease out significant aspects in relation to class and race which impact on mobility in ways we might not expect: the black protagonist experiences moments of freedom and mobility whereas the comparatively privileged white character feels ‘stuck’ even before he leaves his home country.
