This article is based on a public lecture I gave at Oxford University in May 2019. It looks at my critically acclaimed novel House of Stone and the role of literature in shaping the complex human experience, particularly through conflict and trauma. House of Stone explores Zimbabwe’s history, from the fall of Rhodesia right through the early years of Zimbabwe, during Gukurahundi, to the contemporary moment in 2007, going back in time and memory to the arrival of Cecil John Rhodes and his British South Africa Company in the late 19th Century. In looking at literature and trauma, the article analyses the relationship between the particular and the universal and the importance of nuance when approaching complex lives written on the page. In considering nuance, I explore the fascinating process of hewing fiction from history, and how it is that fiction does something different from the narration of history as ‘real events’. In looking at the novel as historical fiction, importance is placed on the connections and continuities between various demarcated histories and relationships – such as what we think of as pre- and post-independence, colonialism and post-colonialism, and liberation war and post-independence genocide. Equally important is the challenge of how to present the violence inherent in this history. Zimbabwe has had a long, violent, bloody history, from the 1890 s right through the 1970s and the 1980s to the contemporary moment of the novel, the 2000s. How does one not wear down the reader with ‘violence fatigue’? Which violence should one portray and how? The article considers the various ways in which the novel portrays violence and the reasons for some of these strategies. At the heart of the question about violence and its portrayal in fiction is the question of how to give the novel a human, rather than inhuman, shape – the shape of humanity. It would be all too easy to fall into the trap of portraying a continuous violence that could quickly become gratuitous and pornographic, its own reason for being.

这篇文章基于我 2019 年 5 月在牛津大学的一次公开演讲。它着眼于我广受好评的小说《石头之屋》以及文学在塑造复杂的人类体验中的作用，尤其是通过冲突和创伤。石头屋探索津巴布韦的历史，从罗得西亚的沦陷到津巴布韦的早年，在 Gukurahundi 期间，到 2007 年的当代，回到过去和记忆中，直到 19 世纪末塞西尔·约翰·罗兹 (Cecil John Rhodes) 和他的英国南非公司的到来世纪。在研究文学和创伤时，文章分析了特殊与普遍之间的关系，以及在处理纸上写的复杂生活时细微差别的重要性。在考虑细微差别时，我探索了从历史中挖掘小说的迷人过程，以及小说如何与作为“真实事件”的历史叙述有所不同。在将小说视为历史小说时，重要的是各种划定的历史和关系之间的联系和连续性——例如我们认为的独立前后、殖民主义和后殖民主义、解放战争和独立后的种族灭绝。同样重要的是如何呈现这段历史中固有的暴力的挑战。津巴布韦有着漫长、暴力、血腥的历史，从 1890 年代到 1970 年代和 1980 年代，再到小说的当代时刻，即 2000 年代。怎样才能不让读者感到“暴力疲劳”？应该描绘哪种暴力以及如何描绘？文章考虑了小说描绘暴力的各种方式以及其中一些策略的原因。关于暴力及其在小说中描绘的问题的核心是如何赋予小说人性的问题，而不是非人，塑造——人性的塑造。很容易陷入描绘持续暴力的陷阱，这种暴力很快就会变成无偿和色情，这是其存在的理由。