Cruel optimism and irreparable reading: Tsitsi Dangarembga's Tambudzai and Nyasha trilogy

Tsitsi Dangarembga's third and final instalment in the Tambudzai and Nyasha trilogy, This Mournable Body, offers a pessimistic conclusion to the story of Tambudzai Sigauke. This pessimism is a result of the promises of the Bildungsroman in the first two novels. Nervous Conditions concludes with the expectation of bildung: the development of a narratorial position for Tambudzai. The Book of Not undercuts these hopes in its myopia and the claustrophobic story of Tambudzai at high school yet remains oriented towards the development of a narratorial agency. This Mournable Body, however, does not deliver the promised Bildung. Instead, the novel is laced with a pessimism that challenges the optimistic form of the Bildungsroman. This article sees this denial of bildung as engendering cruel optimism in the trilogy, critiquing Tambudzai's desires for wealth in postcolonial Zimbabwe as well as the possibilities of reparative readings for the trilogy.