"How All Life is Lived, in Patches": Quilting Metaphors in the Fiction of Yvonne Vera
This writing represents my early attempt at a transdisciplinary reading of Yvonne Vera’s fiction through theoretical writings about the textile. The chapter was first published in 2004 in The End of Unheard Narratives: Contemporary Perspectives on Southern African Literatures (Heidelberg: kalliope) and has been included in two subsequent anthologies.
While quilting is undeniably a European and North American tradition, its place in women’s fiction written in the English language is considerable. Quilting may not have deep historical roots in Zimbabwe, but projects such as the While quilting is undeniably European and North American tradition, its place in women’s fiction written in the English language is considerable. Quilting may not have deep historical roots in Zimbabwe, but projects such as the Weya Appliqués prove its presence and function as an adopted structure in Zimbabwe’s landscape. It is for this reason, rather than any intentional privileging of euro-centric metaphors, that I want to suggest a reading of Yvonne Vera’s fiction that acknowledges the existence of an unassembled patchwork of fabrics in her writings. I assert the quilting pieces apparent in Vera's fiction mirror her 'unassembled' writing style and are one example of the experimental manner in which she attempts to tackle topics that have otherwise remained shrouded in silence.
"How All Life is Lived, in Patches" is anthologised in The End of Unheard Narratives - Contemporary Perspectives on Southern African Literatures, Bettina Weiss (ed) Germany: kalliope paperbacks, 2004: 235-250 & “Yvonne Vera” Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 463, Farmington Hills, Gale, 2020: 262-268.