Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the representation of the Black female body as metaphor to inscribe deviance and difference within the socio-economic history of colonial Zimbabwe through a reading of Yvonne Vera's novel, Butterfly Burning (1998).

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers the representation of the Black female body as metaphor to inscribe deviance and difference within colonial Zimbabwe's society in Yvonne Vera's novel, Butterfly Burning (1998). Set within a vibrant Black township in 1940s colonial Zimbabwe, this novel tells the story of a young Black woman's dream to become a nurse in a world where seperate states of development and employment exist between Blacks and Whites. Through a close reading of this novel, this paper intends to examine how the state's methods of control and containment of people, through restrictions on movement or housing policies, passes construct the Black female body as a "deviant body", anomalous and oppositional to the White colonial ruling class.

My paper intends to argue that Vera's characters, marked as 'deviant' and a minor by State laws, defy authority's controls on women by working as prostitutes and brothel owners, earning a living for themselves through 'deviant' means. Drawing on the socio-economic history of 1940s Bulawayo, my paper seeks to discusses how, through the act of writing, Vera locates seeks to inscribe Black women's bodies into colonial Zimbabwe's socio-economic history, a history in which Black women are often absent.