Within the Landscapes: an ecocritical reading of Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning (1998), The Stone Virgins (2002) and Without a Name (1994)

Abstract

The study problematises the anthropocentricism that dominates critical responses to Yvonne Vera’s works through interrogating the relationship between the human and the nonhuman in Butterfly Burning (1998),The Stone Virgins (2002) and Without a Name (1994). I demonstrate that human concerns are inextricably linked to environmental concerns in Vera’s writing. The study also underscores the connection between humans, nature and the spiritual realm as represented in the three novels. Contrary to some scholars’ claims that most African writers have resisted the ecocritical paradigm, I argue that Africans have always been environmentally conscious in their writings and praxis. In the selected novels, Vera celebrates the nonhuman aspects within the landscape to recapitulate how human lives interlink with the environmental issues. Framed within an ecocritical theory, the study examines how Vera presents and critiques the environmental crisis in Zimbabwe related to reckless mining activities, deforestation, illegal dumpsites, industrial and sewage effluent contaminating water bodies and threatening aquatic life. An ecocritical reading of narratives conscientises while offering new perspectives of analysing African literary texts