Abstract

This article examines intertextuality in Shimmer Chinodya’s Chairman of Fools (Harare: Weaver Press, 2005), focusing on the novel’s entanglement with earlier texts and its extra-literary context. It argues that the text exhibits generic, stylistic, and thematic entanglements with its precursor texts, particularly Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1988) and Dambudzo Marechera’s Mindblast, or, the Definitive Buddy (Harare: College Press, 1984), and with the post-2000 Zimbabwean context, in ways that enrich and extend current and earlier understandings of these texts. It establishes that, besides generic and stylistic entanglements, Chairman of Fools dialogues with these precursor texts in the representation of the figure of the non-conformist artist, discourses of gender, and discourses of mental breakdown. It also engages with discourses of the post-2000 Zimbabwean crisis, inclusive of the “crisis of masculinity”. The symbiosis of this intertextuality makes visible the non-hierarchical relationships that exist amongst these related texts, both literary and non-literary, and brings into focus the instability and permeability of the boundaries often used to order and create demarcations within and between these texts. The intertextuality also points at some of the literary continuities and discontinuities in the Zimbabwean literary canon—and hence its evolution—together with social and ideological shifts in Zimbabwean society.

摘要

本文探讨了 Shimmer Chinodya 的《Chairman of Fools》（哈拉雷：Weaver Press，2005）中的互文性，重点关注小说与早期文本的纠缠及其文学外的背景。它认为该文本与其前体文本表现出一般性、文体和主题上的纠葛，特别是 Tsitsi Dangarembga 的《神经状况》（哈拉雷：津巴布韦出版社，1988 年）和 Dambudzo Marechera 的《Mindblast》，或, the Definitive Buddy（哈拉雷：学院出版社，1984 年） ，并结合 2000 年后津巴布韦的背景，以丰富和扩展当前和早期对这些文本的理解的方式。它规定，除了一般性和文体上的纠葛之外，愚人节主席在非墨守成规的艺术家形象、性别话语和精神崩溃的话语中与这些前身文本的对话。它还涉及 2000 年后津巴布韦危机的讨论，包括“男子气概危机”。这种互文性的共生使这些相关文本（包括文学和非文学）之间存在的非等级关系变得可见，并使人们关注经常用于在这些文本内部和文本之间排序和创建分界线的边界的不稳定性和渗透性。互文性还指出了津巴布韦文学经典中的一些文学连续性和不连续性——及其演变——以及津巴布韦社会的社会和意识形态转变。