Short stories book tackles plight of women

Date:

Cassandra, The Baton Stick and other Short Stories, by Godknows John Zvekare.

This anthology of 12 short stories has one main theme, the injustices that women go through in a male dominated society and the author seeks to raise awareness to such injustices.

 Such injustices include, among others, the disregard of women’s views and opinions, the unequal educational opportunities between the boy child and the girl child, the objectification of women and how they are viewed by some males as people who were just created to go to bed with men and the marginalization of women in the political sphere.

The title story, Cassandra borrows from Greek mythology. Cassandra was the god Apollo’s prophetess and she had been given the power to foretell the future. However, after she refused to be Apollo’s mistress Apollo cursed her and said that no one was ever going to consider her views or opinions. By dedicating this anthology to Cassandra, the writer seeks to point that women, like Cassandra, find it hard to have their views accepted in a male dominated society.

The story, The Baton Stick is about an elderly male in the clan who was supposed to pass on the family baton stick to the deserving male heir. He fails to find a male who entirely met the values of the clan and he ends up passing on the baton stick to a man and a woman, implying that times have changed and even the woman must be treated on equal grounds as men.

 The International Day of Women explores how on a day women are supposed to be recognized, they are still denied recognition. All the day’s proceedings are organized by men and the chief speaker is a man. The minister of women’s affairs is a man who is actually thinking of inviting one of the women to spend the day with him in a hotel.

‘This is your own fault’ is about a schoolgirl who is made pregnant by a much older man who is already married. The writer lays bare the circumstances leading to the girl’s misfortune and how she is forced to dump the newly born baby and is arrested and sentenced to jail. Surprisingly, everyone blames her and they all call her a person of loose morals. The writer’s point is that few people make an effort to understand the social problems women face.

The writer has written two other books of fiction, The Tale of Comrade Stranger and The Dark Side of the Sun. The Tale of Comrade Stranger is about the Zimbabwe war of independence and the author tries to faithfully reflect the suffering that everyone who was involved underwent. The Dark Side of the Sun explores the economic and social problems faced by African countries.

The writer was born in Murewa but grew up in Bikita. He went to Shabanie Mine Primary before moving on to Holy Cross and Gokomere for his secondary education. He did his tertiary education with the University of Zimbabwe and the University of South Africa. Currently, Zvekare is writing a historical novel, The Last Days of the Ndebele Kingdom. He teaches English at Riverton Academy in Masvingo and is contactable on 0774087034

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