Interview: Huchu Tendai by Franzi Kramer

Interview with Tendai Huchu: The person, his book “The Hairdresser of Harare”, Berlin and the German readership ….

FK: Are you a reader? Is reading important to you?
TH: A writer is just a reader on steroids. There is no way you can seriously contemplate being a writer if you don’t read. I read a book or two a week, and there’s no feeling out there better than when you discover a new book that sweeps you into a completely different world. There’s a saying that goes something like, a man who does not read only lives a single life, then they die, a reader lives many lives in many different countries and eras before they die.

FK: Which author do you currently most admire? And why?
TH: I could never hope to narrow it down to one writer. It often changes, because I read so much. Today, I’ll have to say David Mitchell. Why? Read him and find out for yourself. He’ll completely blow your mind.

FK: The man, Tendai Huchu, grew up in Zimbabwe, studied engineering, moved to Scotland/Edinburgh where he worked for some years as a podiatrist – a very unusual life journey – can you tell me how these very diverse interests and destinations meet/come together?
TH: No experience in life – good or bad – is wasted for a writer. It’s all material that may or may not be used in a book, one day.

FK: In 2010, Weaver Press published your first novel: The Hairdresser of Harare which was well received in Zimbabwe and abroad. What made you write this story? Can you say something about your motivation and intentions? And how and why did the podiatrist become a writer, or was the former simply a sensible way of earning a living while you strove to write?
TH: Storytelling is an end in itself, any other justification for engaging in it is superfluous. I’m often amused by the fascinating theoretical frameworks thought up by intellectuals to justify the existence of the novel. I wrote The Hairdresser because I wanted to tell a story.
I think your question about being both a writer and a podiatrist is a false question in the sense that it is not unusual for writers or artists to hold other professions.

FK: The Hairdresser of Harare is a very entertaining and humorous book. Does humour come to you naturally? How do you imagine your readers react to your humour? Do you think that 'comedy' has a stronger impact than 'tragedy'?
TH: The humour in the book is a natural part of Vimbai as a character, and I’m glad readers have enjoyed it. Again, humour is one of those human characteristics that cannot be easily defined. Umberto Eco, in a Paris Review interview, says that humour is the only response we have to the fact that we know we are going to die. Animals cannot have a sense of humour because they do not share our sense of mortality.
I’m not sure that comedy has a stronger impact than tragedy, it all depends with the work and the artist crafting the work. Often the two blend together.

FK: Next to many other things, the novel is undoubtedly dealing with the stigmatization of homosexuals in Zimbabwe. Why is that particularly interesting or important to you?
TH: Kurt Vonnegurt, referring to his novel Slaughterhouse 5, once remarked he was the only person who benefited from the Allied bombing of Dresden to the tune of $1 (one dollar) for every dead person in the city. I’m probably the only person who benefits from the stigmatization of gay Zimbabweans to the tune of about 1p (one penny) for every one of them.

FK: In early 2012 you visited Berlin, the International Literature Festival and since then also other German cities to read from your book (Der Friseur, published in German in 2011), giving talks or workshops … Do you see any differences in how the German audiences reacted to your book in contrast to other European audiences? Or, perhaps, Zimbabweans?
TH: Different people react to the novel differently. Germans tend to overestimate its importance and/or its accuracy in reflecting the Zimbabwean condition. This is merely because few of them would have been to Zimbabwe and fewer still have read any literature from there. What you then have is Chimamanda Adichie’s - ‘The Danger of a Single Story.’ Chimamanda speaks of how an enthusiastic American reader, having read her novel Purple Hibiscus, approached her and remarked how awful it was Nigerian men went about beating their wives. Chimamanda replied that she too had read American Psycho and was equally saddened by how young American men went about killing people.
I often have to remind my readers that The Hairdresser of Harare is fiction, a hyper reality, and as a work of fiction it includes a lot of the innuendo, compression, manipulation and blatant falsehoods that are key components of the storyteller’s toolbox. The Zimbabwean reader recognises it purely as a work of fiction, and I doubt attaches any great importance to the book apart from its value as a piece of entertainment.