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Valentine Tanaka
A journalist launched and corrupted by The Man Himself, Bhekithemba is the grandson of a colonial loyalist, Cosmos Nyathi, who once shook the hands of visiting British loyalty. In 1980, Bhekithemba attends the formal end of British colonial rule in his country (implied to be Zimbabwe), expecting to be sad when the Union Jack is lowered and Prince Charles receives it. Instead, Bhekithemba finds Prince Charles uninspiring but has a momentous encounter with Bob Marley, which converts him to African nationalism. After he writes to his local newspaper describing the experience, The Man Himself gets him a scholarship to study journalism and tells him he must write positive stories about the newly independent nation to protect it from anti-African Western propagandists. Bhekithemba nevertheless tries to write stories that fairly critique the new country—until he writes a story about corrupt practices among government officials. His editor kills the story, informs him The Man Himself has engaged in the same corrupt practices, and tells him to write nothing until The Man Himself gives the go-ahead. While waiting, Bhekithemba hears of a genocide being committed by government soldiers (likely an allusion to the 1982-1987 Gukurahundi genocide) but doesn’t try to report on it, even when his own cousin is “disappeared.” After “passing” this test, Bhekithemba receives an assignment from The Man Himself: to report on Golide Gumele, around whom a cult following is building on the Beauford Farm and Estate because he’s building his wife Elizabeth a pair of wings. Shortly after Bhekithemba visits the farm, meets Golide, Elizabeth, and their daughter Genie, and writes the story, government soldiers massacre the farm’s residents. Much later, after Genie falls into a coma at age 39, Golide writes a largely false story about the return of her lover Vida, a famous sculptor, to homelessness. When Vida confronts him, he apologizes and explains how the government is suppressing stories about the HIV/AIDS pandemic. When Genie is discovered dead on the Beauford Farm and Estate, Bhekithemba joins the convoy to recover her corpse and witnesses her ascending heavenward on silver wings.
Bhekithemba Nyathi Quotes in The Theory of Flight
The The Theory of Flight quotes below are all either spoken by Bhekithemba Nyathi or refer to Bhekithemba Nyathi. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 1, Part 2: History
Quotes
The Man Himself told Bhekithemba that because the country was still young and working out its differences, and because civil wars often had repercussions, conflict was inevitable. However, the country had an image to portray and protect, and Western countries were waiting for it to fail. It was Bhekithemba’s job to ensure that the West did not receive any ammunition with which to destroy the country’s image.
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Bhekithemba did not believe in love, at least not in romantic love. He understood the love one had for one’s parents and one’s country—but that sort of love was born of respect and gratitude. It was a sort of giving back. There was a reason for that kind of love. It was only natural to love the things that had given you life, a sense of place, a feeling of belonging, a connection to things beyond yourself. You could not exist without those things and so of course you loved them. It was a selfish love: a love of self-preservation. Selfish love was understandable . . . reasonable. But romantic love had no reason.
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The man told Bhekithemba how he had come up with his theory of flight on September 3, 1978, as he watched elephants swim across the Zambezi River. What had made the first elephant cross was that it could see the other bank of the river—the elephant would not have swum into the ocean, of this the man was certain. What made the other elephants follow was the successful passage of the first. The man wanted people to know that they were capable of flight, and at first he had erroneously thought that they would realize this if he taught them how to build airplanes. After watching the elephants, he understood that what was needed was merely his own belief in flight. If people saw him build a giant pair of silver wings, then they too would believe that they could fly.
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Book 2, Part 1: Epistemology
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“We live in a time of HIV and AIDS,” Bhekithemba continues. “Everyone knows someone in [the] hospital who is fighting to survive. That fact alone—that we all know someone who is struggling to be alive—should be the headline every day, but it is not. It is our reality, the way we live now, our truth. So of course we cannot acknowledge it, let alone print it.”
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Bhekithemba Nyathi Quotes in The Theory of Flight
The The Theory of Flight quotes below are all either spoken by Bhekithemba Nyathi or refer to Bhekithemba Nyathi. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 1, Part 2: History
Quotes
The Man Himself told Bhekithemba that because the country was still young and working out its differences, and because civil wars often had repercussions, conflict was inevitable. However, the country had an image to portray and protect, and Western countries were waiting for it to fail. It was Bhekithemba’s job to ensure that the West did not receive any ammunition with which to destroy the country’s image.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Bhekithemba did not believe in love, at least not in romantic love. He understood the love one had for one’s parents and one’s country—but that sort of love was born of respect and gratitude. It was a sort of giving back. There was a reason for that kind of love. It was only natural to love the things that had given you life, a sense of place, a feeling of belonging, a connection to things beyond yourself. You could not exist without those things and so of course you loved them. It was a selfish love: a love of self-preservation. Selfish love was understandable . . . reasonable. But romantic love had no reason.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The man told Bhekithemba how he had come up with his theory of flight on September 3, 1978, as he watched elephants swim across the Zambezi River. What had made the first elephant cross was that it could see the other bank of the river—the elephant would not have swum into the ocean, of this the man was certain. What made the other elephants follow was the successful passage of the first. The man wanted people to know that they were capable of flight, and at first he had erroneously thought that they would realize this if he taught them how to build airplanes. After watching the elephants, he understood that what was needed was merely his own belief in flight. If people saw him build a giant pair of silver wings, then they too would believe that they could fly.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 1: Epistemology
Quotes
“We live in a time of HIV and AIDS,” Bhekithemba continues. “Everyone knows someone in [the] hospital who is fighting to survive. That fact alone—that we all know someone who is struggling to be alive—should be the headline every day, but it is not. It is our reality, the way we live now, our truth. So of course we cannot acknowledge it, let alone print it.”
