Ellah Wakatama Allfrey: writers need new ways of talking about Africa's past and present

From memoirs to Star Wars – African writers need new ways to tell our stories

In 1977, my parents bought a house in the Harare suburb of Tynwald, in what was then still Rhodesia. The Second Chimurenga, the war of liberation, was at its zenith, and independence was only three years away. Tynwald was zoned for white residents only, but, in an act of wilful defiance carried out with affected but determined nonchalance, my parents made their own Unilateral Declaration of Independence and forcibly integrated the neighbourhood, aided and abetted by their estate agent, Peggy Healy, a white immigrant from England.

My family had returned from the US two years before. Even with two degrees from American universities, my father had never contemplated us living anywhere but home. We had camped out first with relatives in the township, and then in rented accommodation. After this, the house at Tynwald, a sprawling L-shape with five acres of grounds, a long driveway and a guava orchard, seemed like paradise. Of course, the move attracted attention. There must have been legal wrangling to which we children were oblivious, but I do remember a camera crew arriving to take pictures of us all (my parents, my brothers, my little sister, Mavhu, and me) in our new home for a magazine feature on examples of the country’s gradual shift towards racial equality.

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