Do You Know The Hairdresser Of Harare? Tendai Huchu Shares

Tendai Huchu is one of Zimbabwe's contemporary voices in the diaspora spinning stories that often times tackle the ills of society while presenting ideas in a relevant and light hearted manner.  This month we sat down with Tendai to discuss his most recent work , "The hairdresser of Harare " .   In Tendai's words, 'The hairdresser of Harare' is "the story of a young single mom in Zimbabwe, who is trying to get by and create a future for herself and her daughter.  Along the way she falls in love with a dashing young man who turns out to have a secret"  He further describes his book as a  "social commentary with a scandal involved". Trust me - it is.  His writing simply flows.

 

Upon reading, this book, one of the questions that we just had to get an answer to was what was so fascinating about hair and salons, that he felt 'called' to write this story?  After all, there are very few authors, particularly African male authors, who are willing to get into this almost 'female territory of hair salons'.  Tendai found this question quite funny.  Tendai remarks that as a dredlocked guy, he has visited many a hair salons.  He remembers that his mother used to drag him along on hair appointments as a child and even then he could remember that there were certain days in which everyone will be upset and other days when everyone will be happy.  We can see this attention to the ambiance of the salon in his writing.  He further goes ahead to say that the hair salon is a place in which everyone meets. It is an open space. He draws similarities by stating that this hair salon is similar to the barber shop in the Americas where everyone comes together. That was the reason he went for  it because all kinds of characters can be brought together here.  Which is a very interesting concept because when we think the barber shop or hair salon in movies and books, most of the images that come to mind are images of African American movies and books  (Phat Girls, Coming to America, The Barber shop) and the list goes on but to actually throw this image into an African setting is actually fascinating on its own.