Summary

Butterfly Burning, a novel told in the third person and in both the present and past tenses, opens with a present tense description of men cutting grass until dusk fall. The men twist and roll the grass together, carrying it away. They are working for someone else, and play a music called Kwela to pass the time. The narrator describes the city of Bulawayo and the furtive, nondescript way in which black people learn to navigate the city. They are banned from walking on the pavement. The men go home to Makokobo Township, where kwela music fills the street. The narrator describes the day beginning in Makokbo, sunlight and kwela music filling the streets again. The chapter ends by describing the “NO BLACKS,” “WHITES ONLY,” “CLOSED” AND “OPEN” signs in shopfront windows.

Chapter 2 opens with a description of 17 male bodies hanged, dangling from...