How to Write About Gukurahundi: A Sensitive Guide for Fiction Authors

Writing about Gukurahundi demands both courage and immense responsibility.

I’m Trevor Davies, and I understand the weight you carry when approaching such painful history. The massacres in Matabeleland represent one of Zimbabwe’s darkest chapters, and telling these stories requires exceptional ethical restraint.

I’m writing a novel right now – ‘The Archivist’. It’s based in and around these challenging times in Zimbabwe’s history so I’m facing these very challenges.

You’re faced with a profound challenge: how do you honour truth whilst creating compelling fiction? How do you represent the 5th Brigade operations, survivor testimonies, and ongoing trauma with authenticity?

This guide will help you navigate these complexities with sensitivity and skill.

Understanding Gukurahundi: Essential Historical Context

Building fictional narratives around Gukurahundi begins with rigorous historical research. The factual foundation shapes every aspect of your storytelling, from character motivations to the physical landscapes of violence.

Research the Catholic Commission Report

The 1997 report Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace, compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe and the Legal Resources Foundation, stands as the most comprehensive documentation of these atrocities [1]. This landmark publication documented a minimum of approximately 2,000–2,750 deaths with detailed victim testimony, whilst estimating the true figure could reach as high as 8,000 [1]. The report was based on meticulous evidence gathering, including human rights reports, government sources, and newspaper archives [2].

Study the report’s structure carefully. Part One provides the historical narrative of the 1980s. Part Two offers detailed case studies of Tsholotsho and Matobo districts, documenting events day by day as survivors described them [2]. Part Three examines ongoing problems, including mass graves, and Part Four presents recommendations [2]. This legal nature of documentation provides a model for building evidence-based narratives with careful attention to detail [3].

A broad consensus among scholars, local communities, Joshua Nkomo, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars holds that more than 20,000 people were killed, the great majority of them civilians [1]. Some local estimates range between 20,000 and 40,000 [1]. Your fiction must acknowledge these vastly different figures and what they reveal about contested memory and state denial.

Study survivor testimonies and oral histories

Survivor accounts provide the intimate details that transform statistics into human experience. Witnesses describe civilians forced to sing Shona songs praising ZANU whilst being beaten, public executions after victims dug their own graves, and mass shootings [1]. In Tsholotsho and Lupane, people were burned alive in huts [1]. Bodies were disposed of in disused mine shafts [1].

Specific incidents carry profound weight. In March 1983, at least 55 of 62 young people were shot on the banks of the Cewale River in Lupane District [1]. Bhalagwe camp near Kezi/Maphisa became notorious as a detention and torture centre [1]. These documented events provide anchors for fictional narratives.

Survivor memories remain vivid decades later, shaped by state denial and produced silences [4]. Memory traces are nuanced, influenced by gender, spatial relationships, and intergenerational transmission [4]. Language itself becomes a thread connecting memory to expression [4].

Learn about the Fifth Brigade operations

The Fifth Brigade was drawn from 3,500 ex-ZANLA troops at Tongogara Assembly Point following an October 1980 agreement between Prime Minister Mugabe and North Korean President Kim Il Sung [2][5]. The unit existed outside traditional military command, answering directly to the prime minister’s office [5].

Operations commenced in January 1983 in Matabeleland North, later extending to Matabeleland South and parts of the Midlands [1]. The first months proved particularly intense; international attention forced the campaign to become more covert, but violence continued into 1984 and beyond [1]. The brigade imposed curfews, banned civilian movement, closed businesses, and relocated rural dwellers to makeshift detention camps [6]. Soldiers blocked food supplies, issuing small rations under military supervision, which led to starvation [6]. An estimated 400,000 persons were brought to the brink of starvation due to targeted food limitations [4].

Understand the political background

The Zimbabwe African People’s Union split in 1963, creating the Zimbabwe African National Union [1]. ZANU recruited mainly from Shona-speaking regions, whilst ZAPU drew strong support from Ndebele-speaking areas in the west [1]. Tensions between ZAPU’s ZIPRA and ZANU’s ZANLA persisted throughout the liberation struggle and after independence in 1980 [1].

Historian Stuart Doran, using declassified documents, concludes the massacres were driven from the top by ZANU-PF leadership pursuing specific political objectives, including eliminating opposition ahead of the 1985 elections and creating conditions for a one-party state [1]. The government characterised operations as legitimate counter-insurgency against dissidents [1]. The violence officially ended with the Unity Accord signed on 22 December 1987 [7].

Approaching the Subject with Sensitivity

The violence inflicted profound long-term damage that extends far beyond the 1980s. Loss of life, destruction of social and economic infrastructure in Matabeleland and the Midlands, intergenerational trauma, and deep distrust of the state continue to shape communities [4]. Writers must reckon with this ongoing reality before putting pen to paper.

Recognise the ongoing trauma

Descendants of victims carry psychological and social legacies even when they did not witness events directly [4]. Some struggle to obtain birth certificates or other documents because parents’ deaths were never formally registered [4]. This bureaucratic erasure compounds the original violence.

Survivors live with vivid memories decades later. Ben Moyo from Plumtree was beaten at a roadblock for failing to speak Shona, dislocating his spine and developing chronic back pain [1]. “The trauma is not gone. Apart from the chronic pain, I remember my colleagues who were killed during the genocide,” he said [1]. Sawudeni Moyo, 79, from Tsholotsho suffered a broken hand and cheek, leaving him disabled [1]. Sexual violence trauma memories remain highly detailed and enduring over long periods [1]. Women recall their rape experiences clearly, and these memories have shaped their current worldview [1].

Academic literature consistently stresses that sustainable national healing requires official acknowledgment of the atrocities and the state’s role, inclusive victim-centred truth processes, reparations, community-led memorialisation, and measures to address ongoing regional marginalisation [4]. However, whilst open discussion is now more possible than in previous decades, this remains widely viewed as far from sufficient [4]. Many scholars and activists argue that true reconciliation remains impossible until the past is fully and publicly acknowledged without qualification [4].

Consider your relationship to the events

Your position matters. Researchers whose interests stem from lived experience may navigate perceived or actual conflicts of interest that arise from their identification with the issue under study [5]. Racialised academics researching histories of oppression face particular emotional burdens that standard ethics forms rarely address [7].

Emotional labour is real. Oral history interviews can provide therapeutic space for researched communities, but the impact of their stories on the historian is often felt years after the recording [7]. Researchers describe being given the role of counsellor and friend as well as researcher, struggling to find safe spaces to release the “burden of knowing” [7]. Self-reflexive practises that make visible the less documented spheres of academic work prove essential [7].

Engage with affected communities

Community and cultural practises have emerged as important spaces for mourning and alternative memory work when official channels fall short [4]. Oral histories, performance, literature and grassroots memorials carry collective memory forward. Engaging respectfully with these existing practises demonstrates ethical commitment.

Build trust through respect, cognisance of different reactions to traumatic events within communities, and focus on community strengths and resilience [8]. Providers working with members of underserved cultural groups benefit from gaining fuller understanding of clients’ historical and community context [8]. Be open to traditional ways of healing and acknowledge community resilience [8].

Avoid sensationalism and exploitation

Trauma is not a prop. Every word carries weight [9]. Focus less on what the violence looks like and more on what it does to the soul [9]. Graphic details serve no purpose unless they advance understanding or empathy [9]. Use fewer words to describe violence, allowing small images to stand in for large ones, symbolic ones for graphic ones [10].

Prioritise the human behind the narrative [9]. Place responsibility firmly on perpetrators [11]. Use empowering language rather than sensationalising terms [11]. Avoid invasive or graphic details that compromise survivors’ dignity [11].

Developing Authentic Characters and Perspectives

Character construction shapes how readers encounter Gukurahundi’s truths. The choices you make about perspective, complexity, and voice determine whether your fiction honours or exploits this history.

Choose your narrative voice carefully

Point of view controls what readers access and how they experience events. Fixed first-person perspective allows readers to inhabit a single consciousness, feeling how ordinary people made accommodations with violence incrementally, often with sound rationalisations. This approach proves particularly effective for exploring complicity and moral compromise. Third-person narration creates distance, enabling shifts between interior understanding and exterior observation. You can move readers between sympathy and critical examination of the same character’s actions.

Historical fiction demands period-appropriate voice without obtrusiveness. Read texts from the 1980s Zimbabwe, including newspapers, political speeches, and personal letters. Language itself carries historical weight. The Ndebele language became a marker of “dissidence,” whilst Shona could be life-saving [8]. Your narrative voice must reflect these linguistic power dynamics authentically.

Create multi-dimensional dissident characters

Multi-dimensional characters possess layered personalities showing both positive and negative traits [12]. They evolve through experiences, carry relatable flaws, and interact realistically [12]. Avoid reducing dissidents to symbols or statistics. Every strength harbours a flaw: loyalty breeds naivety, compassion invites exploitation. Place characters in situations where strengths become fatal weaknesses, forcing growth through conflict.

Ground characterisation in researched reality. Study how environment shapes worldview. Characters raised under ZAPU’s political education will differ profoundly from those navigating ZANU-PF rallies where Ndebele identity was systematically degraded [8].

Represent civilian experiences accurately

Civilians in conflict zones face harrowing trade-offs: complying with armed group rules, hiding family members, keeping children from school [13]. These daily negotiations shape character in ways combat never does. Schools and businesses closed, infrastructure destroyed, disrupting personal and professional lives [8]. Some victims were denied birth certificates because deaths went unregistered [8]. These bureaucratic erasures compound original violence and create ongoing character motivation.

Balance perpetrator and victim viewpoints

Writing perpetrators requires examining what drove behaviour without excusing it. The Fifth Brigade was predominantly Shona-speaking, operating outside traditional command structures [8]. Understanding institutional context differs from justifying actions. Seek plausibility in invention: what aligns with documented temperament and historical pressures. Transparency matters. Note where imagination fills evidentiary gaps.

Show the intimate spaces of violence

Cultural violation extended beyond physical harm. Mass burials prevented mourning ceremonies like umbuyiso and ukuthethela, disrupting spiritual connectedness [8]. ZANU-PF rallies became theatre spaces where Ndebele history and identity were annihilated [8]. These intimate cultural destructions carry weight equal to physical violence.

Balancing Historical Truth with Creative Freedom

Fiction operates in the space between documented fact and human experience. Your challenge lies not in choosing between historical accuracy and creative storytelling, but in understanding how each serves the other when writing about Gukurahundi.

Decide what to document versus imagine

An historical statement remains acceptable only when justified by evidence [14]. Consequently, your fiction must anchor itself to verifiable events: the Fifth Brigade’s deployment dates, documented locations of massacres, survivor testimonies you’ve researched. These form your narrative’s skeleton.

However, approximately 99% of historical evidence, particularly unrecorded speech and private moments, remains unavailable [4]. Those quiet conversations before soldiers arrived, the precise words exchanged between family members, a woman’s thoughts as she hid her children—these intimate truths disappeared with the events themselves. This vast absence creates your creative mandate.

Use fiction to explore unspoken truths

Hilary Mantel observed that facts constitute merely “the record of what’s left on the record” [1]. Historical truth cannot be found solely in official events but requires attention to “a woman’s sigh” or “a hand pulling close the bed curtain”—elements absent from any archive [1]. Fiction reminds readers that the unknown and unknowable exert real force [1].

For Gukurahundi, this means exploring what survivors felt but couldn’t articulate, what perpetrators thought during acts of violence, how families navigated impossible choices. These psychological landscapes demand imagination grounded in your research.

Navigate the constraints of evidence

Imagination controlled by scholarship renders learning meaningful [14]. The past remains irrecoverable; historians construct representations through imaginative operations upon evidence [14]. Similarly, your fiction builds bridges across evidentiary gaps, supplying continuity where records fall silent.

Work around facts when necessary, but never distort them [1]. Historical integrity must support your story [1]. When creating dialogue for real figures like Joshua Nkomo or depicting Fifth Brigade operations, stay within documented character and established patterns of behaviour.

Ground imagination in researched reality

Test your inventions rigorously. Could this conversation have occurred given what you know about linguistic hierarchies? Does this character’s decision align with documented community responses? Drive your mental steamroller across every imaginative bridge you construct [15]. If it withstands scrutiny against evidence, it belongs in your novel.

Writing Techniques for Difficult Material

Technical craft determines whether Gukurahundi fiction traumatises or transforms readers. The methods you employ shape not merely aesthetic quality but ethical impact.

Handle graphic violence responsibly

Show consequences rather than spectacle. When Don Winslow wrote about Mexican cartel violence, he increasingly stopped depicting violence itself, instead having characters come upon scenes and react to them [16]. This approach delivers emotional and psychological consequences without desensitisation [16]. Readers possess lower tolerance for violence than writers assume [5]. Test scenes both with and without graphic descriptions, then choose the version with greater resonance [5].

Use symbolism and metaphor effectively

Trauma survivors naturally communicate through metaphors because literal language fails to capture intense experiences [17]. As symptom severity increases, victims metaphorise their emotional experiences more frequently, particularly using negative metaphors [17]. Your fiction should correspondingly employ symbolic language. Metaphors create bridges between ordinary reality and trauma’s altered consciousness [10].

Structure time and memory

Narrative structure itself impacts healing. Research shows that interpretive elaboration (rich subjective detail) and coherence (thematic structure) predict improved coping over twelve months [18]. Early coherence buffers against passive coping strategies, whilst interpretive elaboration promotes active engagement [18]. Structure your Gukurahundi narratives with both elements.

Create space for healing narratives

Fiction transforms unspeakable pain into shareable experience [19]. Narrative repair sequences fragmented memories into coherent, survivable forms [19]. Your work need not fix pain but rather process it, creating new language beyond binary thinking [19].

Let silence speak where appropriate

Integrative silence offers therapeutic pathways beyond verbal disclosure [20]. Silence functions as communication expressing emotional needs when carefully employed [20]. In your fiction, allow pauses where words fail. Silence can speak trauma’s unspeakable nature more powerfully than any description [20].

Conclusion

Writing about Gukurahundi requires unwavering commitment to truth, sensitivity, and ethical responsibility. You now understand the historical context, the ongoing trauma, and the techniques that honour survivors whilst creating compelling fiction.

Most importantly, remember that these stories belong to real people whose pain continues decades later. Your creative choices must serve their dignity, not your narrative ambitions.

Approach this work with humility. Research thoroughly, engage respectfully with affected communities, and let silence speak where words fail. The balance between historical accuracy and creative freedom exists precisely where evidence meets empathy. Write with courage, but above all, write with conscience.

References

[1] – https://historicalnovelsociety2026.mystagingwebsite.com/alternative-truth-historical-fiction-does-it-matter-that-we-get-the-facts-right/
[2] – https://transitionaljusticedata.org/public_files/reportTCID203.pdf
[3] – https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/gukurahundi-zimbabwe-report-disturbances/docview/229664704/se-2
[4] – https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/research-storytelling-successful-historical-fiction
[5] – https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/make-violent-scenes-matter-5-tips-for-writing-violence-that-doesnt-turn-readers-off
[6] – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Brigade_(Zimbabwe)
[7] – https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/fiction/sensitive-research/
[8] – https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/8/4/147
[9] – https://destinymotif.com/writing-about-domestic-violence-without-exploitation/
[10] – https://cleanlanguage.com/the-role-of-metaphor-in-recovery-from-trauma/
[11] – https://design.shelter.org.uk/digital-framework/writing-about-domestic-abuse
[12] – https://www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/english/creative-writing/multi-dimensional-characters/
[13] – https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/navigating-violence-learning-civilian-experiences-and-strengthening-humanitarian-action
[14] – https://www.scribd.com/document/959132564/Little-HistoricalImagination-1983
[15] – https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/unknown-history-bridging-gaps-imagination
[16] – https://time.com/6170479/don-winslow-writing-violence-fiction/
[17] – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10835999/
[18] – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7310038/
[19] – https://www.writersdigest.com/the-healing-power-of-fiction-turning-pain-into-prose
[20] – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12175188/