Shebeen Tales

These short essays examine different aspects of life in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, but Hove's (Bones) brevity gives some of these pieces a superficial feel. Still, they work as a native's intimate--occasionally painful--look at his own land and cover a lot of different topics without ever shying away from uncomfortable reality. His observations about women and their place in Zimbabwean culture are particularly incisive. Hove laments the use of women as ornamental airport greeters and describes an encounter with a prostitute, and her flip answers to his inquiries about AIDS: ""`I will never make love with condoms,' she later tells us. `It's like eating a sweet covered in plastic.'"" A ``shebeen'' is a sort of speakeasy or illegal bar, and Hove writes casually of visiting one, getting a little drunk and having a line of ``young girls of school-going age parade themselves as if to say, `Which one of us?'"" There is also a report on the place of drinking in Zimbabwean society, including a humorous list of beer hall names, which includes ``rambanayi (go ahead and divorce)'' and ``makovhorosi (booze during lunch break with overall on).'' Another essay explains how the Harare city council enacted laws that force squatters and homeless people out of the streets when important people visit. In an epilogue, Hove writes that his search for a ``national psyche'' sharpened his vision considerably. All told, this is a pleasant mishmash of more good bits than bad ones that serves as an introduction to Zimbabwe--but rarely is it more than that. (June)