given mukwevho

When the prison gates were opened

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho spent eleven of his twenty-nine years jailed at various prisons including privately-owned Kutama Sinthumule Maximum Security Prison in Makhado. He was arrested in 2000 for breaking and stealing from various businesses in Makhado and slapped with a 22-years prison sentence.

Today he is out on parole which is frustrating. “Being a parolee means you cannot go to places of your will without first informing your probation officer. Even when it means going to a tuck shop, you must leave a message in case an officer finds you absent at home”, he says.

Mukwevho was born in Madombidzha village outside Makhado where he stayed with a single mother’ who was always off fending in Johannesburg’. He says while he ‘can’t cite any social conditions as a cause for my crimes’ he yearned for certain things and as nobody could provide for him he stole money from shops to buy clothes for himself.

At Kutama Mukwevho pursued creative writing through UNISA. “When I was released in 2010 the first person I met was a man who was going to become my publisher, Vonani Bila,” he remembers.

Through Timbila, Mukwevho has since published a collection of short stories titled A Traumatic Revenge. He’s happy that readers do not classify it as prison writing. By his own confession ‘the writer's physical being was inside, but the soul hovered somewhere in between with one eye glimpsing the outside life and the other witnessing the inside life.’

He is currently working on a manuscript titled The Violent Gestures of Life which is about life in prison, “The boy wanted to sodomise Bheki; that’s his claim anyway. Was there any need for Bheki to take a ghastly decision to stab him with a knife though? Was it the only decision to arrive at? It is likely his intention was to warn the new boy, send him away with the knowledge that if he continued demanding sex from other boys he might die sooner than he had expected”.

Mukwevho has become a sought-after ChiVenda poet. Last year he headlined the Polokwane Literary Festival and relates to temptations incarceration brings. “He (another inmate) gives you books, and even adds at least three new pens he has arranged from his connections. The next thing he sends a piece of note requesting exchange of love favours. Sodomy is not just a word: Sodomy invokes images of a man inserting his penis into your anus”, Mukwevho wrote in an essay.

His sanity was saved by a supply of reading material which chiselled the juvenile into an inmate poet who published eleven poems in Timbila 6. “I managed to write lots of stuff from within the prison walls and I cannot label myself a prison writer.” he adds. Amongst the throngs of people whose material he read was Bessie Head, Njabulo Ndebele, Andre Brink, Lufuno Ndlovu and Can Themba. Newspapers introduced him to Sello Duiker, Phaswane Mpe, Niq Mhlongo, Sandile Memela etc.

“Mac Manaka and David wa Maahlamela are two people whose poetry I encountered when I was in the single cells in Thohoyandou Prison. Wa Mahlamela's poetry was featured in Sowetan Sunday World's poetry page, while Mac's poetry and an interview appeared in S'camtho youth magazine,” he adds.

Elana Bergin, editor at University of Kwazulu-Natal Press who mentored Mukwevho since he was incarcerated testifies that there’s a lot of improvement in him. Bergin says Mukwevho has improved on his understanding of structure and his English. “He’s a brilliant poet. Has worked hard and improved a lot. I can say he is a very promising writer”, she says.

A free Mukwevho is currently negotiating a national publishing deal for his first novel. He lives with his partner and child in Makhado and writes for three local newspapers. 

“I was arrested at a very young age, so the prison experience taught me that I have got to work hard for everything I need in life. That's the reason why I was able to study hard and have a focus on life while I was still in jail”, he says.

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REVIEW

Free At Last

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho spent eleven of his twenty-seven years of life imprisoned at Kutama Sinthumule Maximum Security Prison in Makhado. During these long captive years his spirit has roamed free as he found solace in his creative juices.

Mukwevho was released last November on parole. When he walked out he had already published his poetry in Timbila Volume 6, which was published in 2008. In one of his honest poems titled something, Mukwevho writes, “waking up/ early in the morning/ rushing to town to sell some carry bags, toothbrushes:/ small business means/ small money/ better off than stealing/ something that leads us to jail”

He is a creative soul who also writes short stories and novels. As if resembling the Biblical Jonah who was swallowed by a fish when he tried to dodge his calling Mukwevho pursued creative writing with UNISA while incarcerated. When he walked out last November a national publishing house had already offered to publish his first novel. The writer couldn’t be kept down as prison walls also failed to suffocate the writer in him.

Eight months after he was freed Mukwevho published his first collection of short stories titled A Traumatic Revenge. The book with the scary yet attractive cover is made up of eleven short stories critiquing society and how it conducts itself in different situations.

Jigsaw in the Sky is a heart-warming story about xenophobia towards Zimbabweans. It objectively enquires why people see the difference in the next instead of the similarity.

The kind of language we Speak tells the story of a student protest that ended with the death of a learner. Mukwevho’s versatility as a writer is explicit on this short story where the narrative is in first person and he successfully takes the role of a woman named Zodwa.

Defeated explores the abuse that some wealthy people subject vagrants when they offer them money to sodomise or even to watch them have sex with their dogs. While the story might raise racial temperatures, it’s the honesty with which the author narrates it that will melt even the coldest heart.

All Mukwevho’s stories have a moral to them. They are all rooted in society. Intriguing that he moves his storylines from town to town and even writes about inventions and innovations of the past ten years. Given that he spent all these years behind the ugly walls of Kutama Sinthumule, Mukwevho’s exceptional storytelling skills come out glaring. Few people would find inspiration in a space designed to break a man’s spirit.

A Traumatic Revenge sold a hundred copies at its Makhado launch a month ago and Mukwevho has indicated that he is willing to tour the country during the month of September to read in libraries and community centres.

Libraries wanting to invite Mukwevho for a reading of his book during September can arrange with his publisher at Timbila Publishing 015 291 2088 – Vonani Bila.

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