Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Fiction of Yvonne Vera.(Book Review)

ED. ROBERT MUPONDE AND MANDI TARUVINGA Harare: Weaver; Oxford: James Currey, 2002. xvi + 236pp. ISBN 1-77922-004-9 paper. Distributed in the USA and Canada by the African Book Collective--Email: abc@africanbookscollective.com, http://www.africanbookscollective.com

Zimbabwean Yvonne Vera is an author difficult to read and to characterize. As someone who believes that the better part of a critic's job is accurate description of the text, I am very sympathetic to the task undertaken by the critics in this collection. The subtitle characterizes Vera's fiction as "poetic," and Lizzy Attree points out that the right-justified prose in her novels could easily be end-stopped …