ABSTRACT
The conclusion brings the most important aspects together and links back to questions raised in the introduction. What is literature’s capacity for movement and border crossing? The conclusion argues that depictions of physical movement reveal moments where histories of oppression intersect with contemporary forms of authoritarianism. Self-reflexive attention on storytelling and on the specifics of space and place can be an act of subversion; most of the texts discussed in this monograph write back to the authoritarian regime by way of telling stories about movement. Writing back to the Mugabeist story of the Third Chimurenga can take the form of a critical engagement with the boundaries imposed from above. The conclusion also draws attention to the aspect of intertextuality, which has emerged as an important aspect of Zimbabwe’s literary mobility: these texts move within a landscape of the Zimbabwean canon, but also beyond it by crossing the borders of nationally circumscribed literary containers. Literary worldliness can thus be seen as a further aspect of overcoming the boundaries of ZANU-PF’s nationalism. As a final aspect, the conclusion turns to the military coup in 2017 which led to the end of Mugabe’s rule.
