The Setting Sun and the Rolling World

Old Musoni is Nhamo’s father and foil in the collection’s title story. Just as Nhamo represents the young generation in Zimbabwe, Old Musoni represents the old. He fears modernity in all its forms, particularly the technology brought to his country by European colonizers. Although he is a Christian, Old Musoni continues to practice rituals rooted in traditional beliefs. He figures into the metaphor of the title “The Setting Sun and the Rolling World” in that, from Old Musoni’s perspective, Nhamo is like a setting sun as he abandons his homestead, leaving only frost and darkness in his wake.

Mhondiwa is the protagonist of the collection’s final story, “The Flood.” Although he starts the story as an assistant foreman on a gumtree plantation, Mhondiwa continues to be haunted by the legacy of his ancestors’ traditional beliefs. For example, he remains deeply traumatized by a boyhood exorcism conducted by a local medicine man involving bloodletting and anal penetration. He is also fixated on a lion skin belt given to him by that same medicine man, which he believes gives him strength in adulthood. The loss of this belt, which is stolen by his unfaithful wife, exacerbates Mhondiwa’s emotional tailspin, which culminates in his murder of his romantic and professional rival, Chitauro.

Mhondiwa thus represents the difficulty of functioning in a harsh modern world when one maintains psychic ties to the darker side of rural traditions. His increasing psychological distress is mirrored by the elemental rains outside the hut where he seeks reconciliation with Chitauro. As the storm intensifies, so too does Mhondiwa’s anger, until it finally boils over and results in Chitauro’s death.

The protagonist of “The Day the Bread Van Didn’t Stop,” Mrs. Pfende co-owns a small grocery store with her husband, Mr. Pfende. A few years earlier, Mrs. Pfende’s first husband died. Because of this bad fortune, combined with Mrs. Pfende’s striking beauty, the husband’s family labeled her a witch and took away her children. Meanwhile, her present husband is unable to give her children and is moreover insensitive to her needs and generally unloving. Her character thus represents the potentially grievous consequences of being labeled a witch in Zimbabwe, as this costs Mrs. Pfende her family and her future.

The antagonist of “The Brother,” Magufu is a young married man who went to school and moved to Harare to support his family in the countryside. He arguably represents the worst possible outcome for an individual who leaves the relative stability of a family farm to pursue professional opportunities in the city. Magufu suffers from full-blown alcoholism, as shown by his desperate need to drink from Sando’s brandy bottle following a night of violence and debauchery, during which he raped a 14-year-old girl by getting her drunk and coercing her into having sex.

Like Nhamo in “The Setting Sun and the Rolling World,” Magufu is compared to the sun—only instead of being characterized as a celestial body of boundless energy, Magufu is likened to a ball of fire that grows hotter and angrier as it ascends. He is a cautionary tale for young men like Nhamo who believe they will thrive in the city.

Moab Gwati is the protagonist of “Coming of the Dry Season.” Although he is not shown to be violent, Moab resembles Magufu in that they are both young professionals in Harare who choose sex and alcohol over their families. This is shown by the fact that Moab squanders his paycheck on a weekend of partying instead of buying a bus ticket to visit his dying mother.

Moab also reflects the fraught parent-child dynamics that emerge across these stories. He holds long-simmering resentment toward his mother, who encouraged him to move away from home to the city to earn money for her. This resentment poisons his relationships with other women, including Chipo, who wants nothing but love from him. Finally, Moab’s story employs the recurring motif in which a scent inspires a powerful sense-memory. Yet unlike a character like Bishi, Moab has been away from home too long for this memory to have any effect outside of deepening his resentment.

In “White Stones and Red Earth,” Bishi is a boarding school student who struggles to grieve for his recently deceased brother. Having been away from home for some time, he fails to capture the appropriate emotional vocabulary for dealing with the loss of a family member. That changes when the smell of dirt from the orchard on his family farm overwhelms him with emotion for his lost brother, emphasizing how powerful the sights and smells of home can be in reconnecting individuals with their roots.