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Critical Literature Review presents, Nigerian author, Ayodele Olofintuade's review of Tendai Huchu's debut novel ‘The Hairdresser of Harare’. We hope you enjoy reading it.
‘The Hairdresser of Harare’,
Tendai Huchu’s debut novel, is about beautiful hair, family and love. It is an easy read which I
devoured less than 24hrs after it was handed to me by a friend. I enjoyed it so
much that when I got to the end I was faintly surprised.
It is engaging, fun and fast
paced. The author manages to convey emotions, thoughts and actions of the
characters with as few words as possible, which is an art in itself. It also
helps that the chapters are short and to the point. There is no
dilly-dallying or the inclusion of long, philosophical passages, which make reading some books a tedious exercise.
The Hairdresser of Harare is a
story of deception; a woman’s journey into the inner workings of her mind; of
revenge and the havoc that intolerance can wreak on relationships.
Vimbai is a single-parent struggling
to pay her bills, and until Dumi barges into her well-ordered world, she is the
queen bee at Khumalo Hair and Beauty Treatment Salon in Harare. A village girl,
with a village ‘world’ view and a set way of doing things, she does not take
kindly to this invasion and dislikes him from the get go.
Not only is he male, in the
female dominated world of hairdressing, he also knows his onions. Unlike Vimbai, who believes that any female
who walks into the salon wants to leave ‘feeling like a white woman’ (as she
puts it ‘white is a state of mind’), Dumi works from the angle that women want
to feel beautiful, he has magic fingers that can change a woman from dowdy to
sophisticated just by snipping a couple of inches off her hair.
Dumi is good looking, confident
(a bit overbearing), well groomed and charming. He is completely unlike most
men in Vimbai’s experience and all the clients who, hitherto, would have only Vimbai
attend to their hair, now book appointments to see Dumi. To add insult to
injury, within the first three months of his employment he is chosen overVimbai
(in spite of her long service, loyalty and dedication) as the manager of the
salon.
In a twist of fate (truthfully,
the twist is of the writer’s keyboard) Dumi and Vimbai become housemates. From
there it was a short step away from love, romance and a ticket
‘happily-ever-after’, as Dumi charms his way into the hearts of Vimbai and her
young daughter. For a while everything appears to be perfect, for the first
time in a long while, everything is lined up in obeisance to Vimbai’s every
wish.
This book is a strong debut from
the Zimbabwean author. He was able to use simple, everyday language and gentle
humour to address a vast array of issues, which in other books might end up sounding
repetitive and boring.
His characters are well rounded,
with the usual human flaws; nobody was over or underdone. There is the Minister
who has a mean streak a mile wide and would not hesitate to sic her thugs on
you if she feels you’ve insulted her; but who on the other hand is kind and does
not condescend to people. There was Mrs. Khumalo; a hard-headed business woman,
who displays a motherly heart.
The story is tight knit and fast
paced. Unlike a lot of books written recently about Africa, there are no long
chapters where the author uses a character to pontificate on one issue or the
other. There are no superfluous chapters or loose ends. Every chapter was a
step taken towards the conclusion of the novel.
The story is set in present day
Harare, which Huchu manages to paint so realistically with words that the
reader can easily follow Vimbai on her daily journey from her home to the salon.
An example is the way Vimbai gives directions to the salon in the first
chapter, “Go up from Harare Gardens, skip two roads, take a left, skip another
road and look for the blue house on your right, not the green one and you’re
there. You’d have to be a nincompoop to miss it.”
The author touches on a wide range
of problems that has plagued African nations for years; corruption, lack of
infrastructures, poverty, etc., but these facts are not used to evoke pity. Rather
they are skilfully manipulated to move the story forward. This book is neither
a cry for a ‘white saviour’ or an attack on colonialism (neo- or otherwise). The
characters walk onto the pages, deal with their problems and move on.
The Hairdresser of Harare is
written in the first person narrative, and the author is able to resist the
temptation to delve into the thoughts of the other characters. Everything is
written through the narrator’s eyes and world view (in this case, a
semi-literate opinionated view). Yet, he manages to give the reader an insight
into how the minds of the other characters work.
The book is the embodiment of the
saying ‘less is more’. It gives its reader a chance to reflect on what has been
said without thrusting its opinion down your throat. It manages to present each
character in all their flawed glory without passing judgement or compelling the
writer to form an opinion one way or another.
The book starts out with the
words “I knew that there was something not quite right about Dumi the very
first day I ever laid eyes on him.” This sentence draws the reader in, it is a
big sign that you’re about to go for a ride full of suspense. You jump in and
four chapters later you know exactly what was ‘not right’ about Dumi.
Unfortunately, Vimbai doesn’t get
‘it’; all the signs and clues dropped by Dumi and the members of his family are
totally ignored by her (or as the writer would have us believe, she is ignorant
of the signs) and against her gut instinct she goes ahead to fall in love with
him.
Although the author tries to
maintain the suspense of the yarn by peppering the book with other sentences
like “If I’d known what I discovered three weeks later...” etc., it falls flat,
leaving the reader rather annoyed and with the uneasy feeling that the author
is somehow implying that one is almost as blind as the protagonist. If Huchu
wanted to stretch out the suspense, he should not have given so much away from
the beginning of the book. There are so many of these ‘signposts’ that one is
tempted to yell ”We know already!” at him each time one reads another sentence leaning
to the fact that the book is supposed to be suspenseful.
The story should have simply been
left as what it is; a simple story of love, loss and acceptance, instead of trying
to make out that the plot is more complex than it really is.
Aside from making the protagonist
almost stupidly blind, the author also bases the crisis and its resolution on
almost improbable circumstances which could be torn apart with a few, well-placed
observations.
On the whole The Hairdresser of
Harare is an enjoyable read. It is one
of the brave new books being written these days by Africans, about Africa and
tackles issues that are still considered taboo on the continent.
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Book Title: The Hairdresser of Harare
Author: Tendai Huchu
Publisher: Freight Books
No of pages: 236
About the Reviewer
Ayodele Olofintuade is a Nigerian
author of children’s literature. She lives in Ibadan, Nigeria.
