Violette Kee-Tui wins Yvonne Vera Award at Intwasa 2012

Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo has announced this year’s winner of The Yvonne Vera Award for short story writing. This year’s winner is Violette Kee-Tui with her short story Tattered Cloth. The short story was adjudged the best out of 81 short stories submitted this year. The Intwasa Short Story Competition is an annually event organised by Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo. Violette Kee-Tui’s Tattered Cloth faced stiff competition from Sipho Mpofu’s A Congenial Man and Nixon Nembaware’s The Rain God of Nyatanga Hill.  For her efforts Violette Kee –Tui won $500. The Yvonne Vera award is supported by Hivos and the Norwegian Embassy and seeks to promote and honour creative writing, particularly short story writing in Zimbabwe.

In short Tattered Cloth is the story of forbidden love, and a relationship that is doomed from the beginning. It is well told and almost seamless. The judges fell in love with the story and heaped praise upon praise on Violette Kee-Tui’s narrative skills. 

Previous winners of the Intwasa Short Story Competition, which has developed into Zimbabwe's leading writing competition, include 'amaBooks writers Thabisani Ndlovu, Bryony Rheam, Chaltone Tshabangu, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Bongani Ncube.