Exposing gender prejudice with silent weapons

Mahachi-Harper migrated to the UK in 1998 and has become a champion of feminism through her literary work. She has a diploma in English and French from Hillside Teachers’ College (Zimbabwe), another academic qualification in French Culture and Civilisation from the University of Poitiers as well as a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Zimbabwe.

“My literature captures and poignantly illustrates the aspirations of women to whom the country’s independence in 1980 brought little cause for joy,” she said. Mahachi-Harper did not consciously set out to write about the plight of women and children, even though that has become the focus of her work. The Kadoma-born 48-year-old is one of the country’s most acclaimed feminist writers alongside Yvonne Vera, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Barbara Makhalisa, Lillian Masitera, and Vivienne Ndlovu.

Mahachi-Harper vows to continue using the silent weapons of pen and paper to fight for a gender-sensitive and more balanced society. “Women’s and children’s struggles are always my theme whenever I begin a project. My work is all fiction but it is events in real life that I draw upon” she said. “We have come a long way in addressing imbalances in our country. When we attained independence the government encouraged education for both sexes. Women were uplifted to higher positions and I remember that certain positions were reserved for women, yet they are still in the minority,” added Mahachi-Harper.

As a writer, she is always seeking to learn and discover.

“I have to grow each year with new ideas, new approaches, and new methods to ensure the issue of inequality is greatly tackled and properly addressed,” said Mahachi-Harper. “I am not trying to be in competition with others, but only pioneering an equal and democratic society.”

Mahachi-Harper’s Trials and Tribulations (2000) is a first person narrative by a female protagonist, Mairesi. It talks about life in a mine compound in Zimbabwe, about her growth to adulthood, marriage, and loss. It further describes the poverty and deprivation of the people in the mines and shows how people adapt and survive to go on living normal domestic lives.

Echoes in the Shadows (2004) centres on the plight of a schoolgirl who endures the banter from the wealthy brother in law whom no one dares challenge because he is the family’s lifeline. The girl is raped by the brother in law but summons the courage to fight back. Mahachi-Harper’s latest offering, Footprints in the Mists of Time (2012), received much attention as she focused on the controversial subject of citizenship.

The novel focuses on the plight of the people who, for almost a century, were considered to have no permanent place in Zimbabwe—migrant workers and their families from other parts of southern Africa.