'Whatever Happened to Rick Astley?' launched in Bulawayo

Bryony Rheam's short story collection Whatever Happened to Rick Astley? was launched on July 22 at Still Haven in Bulawayo.

The video, kindly made by Ernest Mackina, shown here gives an impression of the venue and the launch - hope you enjoy it.

Bryony says that: 'Whatever Happened to Rick Astley? is a collection of 16 short stories written over the last 20 years. Perhaps more than my novels, they depict a variety of different characters facing different situations in their lives. The majority of the stories have a Zimbabwean flavour, and are set either here or in the diaspora, but explore universal feelings of longing, love and loss. Although none are purely autobiographical in nature, they are either inspired by people I have met, situations I have witnessed, or things I have experienced, like the piano tuner I met in Ndola, an old lady I saw shouting at a man to go to the back of the queue, and the approach of middle age.

'The story Whatever Happened to Rick Astley? is  based on a Facebook post I wrote a couple of years ago. It was Friday night, I was drinking peppermint tea and trying to stay awake until ten o'clock when I had to fetch Sian from youth group. I was thinking of all the Friday nights I spent as a teenager, desperate to go out somewhere, and how my mum would always be waiting up for me and my sister, sitting at the kitchen table in her blue dressing gown. Although I was quite content to be at home reading my book, I was also uncomfortably aware of life changing. 

'It's a story about having dreams, about being excited about the future, but then discovering how quickly life goes by, how you suddenly realise you were handed the baton and you didn't even know it, and it's up to you to take over. Although it's a story about getting older, it's also a story about accepting where you are in your life and how there is always something to celebrate. My stories are not political. An Amazon reviewer once wrote about This September Sun that they were hoping to find out more about Mugabe from reading the book and were sadly disappointed. I am afraid this reader is likely to be disappointed once again. The Zimbabwean government has taken enough from its citizens for me to allow them to dominate my narrative as well. But saying that, perhaps there is a message here about growing up and moving on, something I feel we as Zimbabweans are fearful of, but need to do.  Rick Astley has recently made a comeback, and that’s what we need to do as well.'