Some Kinds of Childhood: Images of History and Resistance in Zimbabwean Literature

Some Kinds of Childhood: Images of history and resistance in Zimbabwean literature explores the ways in which childhood is constructed and represented in a wide range of black Zimbabwean novels and short stories written in English from 1972 to 2013. In particular, it considers how representations of childhood bear upon questions of history, politics and resistance. By drawing on a range of global theories on childhood, the argument is advanced that, instead of merely seeing childhood in romantic or idyllic terms, it is possible to appreciate it as a contested terrain, one in which the larger tensions and confl icts of the society manifest themselves. Childhood is accorded by Zimbabwean writers represented in this book a central role in social, political, and cultural concerns by being depicted not only as a matter of focalization and characterization, but a tool for the construction of a wide range of culturally and historically specifi c sets of ideas and philosophies. They include, i