The Stone Virgins

The Stone Virgins is a 2002 novel by Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera. Centering on the story of two sisters, Thenjiwe and Nonceba, the novel paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of rural Zimbabwe during its traumatic transition from colonial rule to civil war. Vera’s work—which includes her best-known novel, Butterfly Burning (1998)—has attracted critical praise for its poetical language and uncompromising depiction of postcolonial struggle and violence in Southern Africa. The Stone Virgins won the 2002 Macmillan Writers’ Prize. In 2004, Vera was awarded the Swedish PEN Tucholsky Prize "for a corpus of works dealing with taboo subjects.”

The novel opens with a God’s-eye view of Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Bulawayo (where Vera was born). For nearly thirty pages, the narrative follows the city’s central Selborne Avenue, mapping out its cross-streets and storefronts. This is a colonial city: urban, Westernized, with English-language place-names.

From Bulawayo, we follow a bus bringing a busload of daily commuters from the city to the isolated rural town of Kezi. As we proceed into the countryside, we also penetrate the rural mindset and the rhythms of rural life: “In truth, the bus drives from Bulawayo to Kezi...But on the slim wooden plaque suspended next to the conductor's window, Kezi comes first, and in the minds of the residents of Kezi, of course, Kezi comes first: the bus, therefore, is seen as driving from Kezi to Bulawayo.”



From the window of the bus, Kezi is described in loving detail: "Whenever the Kwakhe River is full, the bus fails to cross the bridge; it lags, and people have to spend a day and maybe half a night waiting on the other side, nestling their treasured wares gathered from the city, while listening to the river sulk. The bridge becomes covered entirely, as if it had never been there." Here place-names are in Bantu languages; Westernization has not arrived. The narrator hints that Kezi is vulnerable to history in a way the city is not: "To be in Kezi, to be in the bush, is to be at the mercy of misfortune.”

The center of the village is the Thandabantu general store: “Kezi starts and ends at Thandabantu Store.” The Store is Kezi’s only shop, the site of the bus stop and proud location of the village’s phone booth (which has neither handset nor any wiring). It is also the hub of life in the village; much of the novel wanders around the Store, following the events and characters of Kezi.

It’s at Thandabantu Store that we first meet Thenjiwe. She is watching a lone man, Cephas, who, in turn, is watching the people around him. Cephas spots Thenjiwe and approaches her. She allows him to follow her to the house she shares with her beloved sister, Nonceba.



Cephas and Thenjiwe begin a love affair, tentative at first and finally intense and passionate. She learns that he is from the city, a worldly man who works as a museum archivist, specializing in piecing together the artifacts of ancient kingdoms. During the two months of their affair, Vera follows in detail the minute ebb and flow of the lovers’ feelings, during the days and as they sleep. Their love scenes have a metaphorical or symbolic power: on one occasion, Cephas washes Thenjiwe with milk, crying: “You are beautiful like creation.”

The affair is interrupted by the outbreak of civil war: “the years of deafness and struggle.” Many of the men (and women) of Kezi leave to fight, and when they return, they are scarred by their experiences.

We encounter the soldier Sibaso taking “shelter from the dead” at the site where “stone virgins” have been painted on rocks at Gulati. Sibaso is traumatized by the killing he has perpetrated and witnessed, and his killing frenzy is not over. He bursts into Thenjiwe’s home, decapitates her, and proceeds to mutilate and rape Nonceba. Then he vanishes, never to be seen again.



The remainder of the novel follows Nonceba as she attempts to process this new trauma. At first, she suppresses her memories, her ability to speak. Slowly she begins to heal.

One day, Cephas returns. Learning what has happened, he offers to take Nonceba away to give her a new life in Bulawayo. Nonceba cannot trust him at first. But one day, the Thandabantu Store is burned down in another act of senseless violence, and Nonceba realizes there is no future for her—perhaps for anyone—in Kezi. She agrees to follow Cephas to Bulawayo, where the novel suggests she may come to find some peace.

The Stone Virgins explores themes of national and local identity, the nature of colonial violence, and the impact of trauma on personal and national identity. The novel also paints a detailed portrait of Southern African provincial life during the devastating upheavals that followed the end of colonialism.