Maximum Space around the Typewriter: Yvonne Vera and the Craft of Writing

Abstract

The late Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera puts material culture to use throughout her published fiction. Her engagement with the physical stuff that enters her writing reflects less the current wave of political craft scholarship and perhaps more an opportunity to work with the beauty of details provided both by the horrific and the everyday. This article argues that the descriptions Yvonne Vera offers us of her own writing process shed light on her work as a practitioner – a practitioner of the craft of writing – an emphasis often overlooked in studies more national or political in focus. Overall, the article is interested in acknowledging the less predictable nature of the creative process, which in Vera's case sought inspiration through attention to material culture, a process often described by Vera as an embodied, consuming search.

Keywords:

• craft
• material culture
• Yvonne Vera
• creative writing

Notes

1 Fonds are archived documents grouped according to shared origin that may reflect daily life.