amaBooks

John Eppel's 'Hatchings' available on Kindle

2012-01-27T11:42:00.004+02:00

John Eppel's 'Hatchings', chosen for the Times Literary Supplement series on 'the most significant book to have come out of Africa', is now available on Kindle. If you have a Kindle, or if you're thinking of getting one, please visit http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00712WXNC.

'Hatchings' was recently reviewed by Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende on http://amabooksbyo.blogspot.com/2011/10/john-eppels-hatchings-reviewed-by.html

Other amaBooks titles will be available soon for Kindle.

Where to Now? reviewed on panorama.co.zw

2012-01-23T12:26:00.003+02:00

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe

 Edited by Jane Morris.  Published by amaBooks

http://www.panorama.co.zw/index.php/component/content/article/34-panorama-news/199-where-to-now.html 

As long as there are storytellers writing and employing whatever medium or platform this question will not arise. Where it does, the bone of contention can only be the focus and direction that the writing assumes. 

But as Where to Now? demonstrates, there are as diverse areas of focus as there are storytellers and in this case – everyday stories for and about everyday Zimbabweans. So there will always be new mediums alongside the conventional ones thus ensuring that storytellers will forever withstand the test of time. 

Autumn colours adorn the cover of this book, perhaps suggesting a forgone era or one in its twilight moments. But if you have a fascination with the environment or once poured over desert maps/topography the reaction is either that this is a tree trunk with its striations describing its growth pattern or alternatively the course of a dried river with each striation its tributaries or a narrative – an idea that finds space, shoots off on a journey of exploration or one that promisingly starts off in a chosen direction but perishes prematurely. 

In Writing Free, a collection of stories recently published by Weaver Press I found myself re-reading The Novel Citizen by Ignatius T Mabasa. It is a compelling story told using rarely explored techniques. In Where to Now? I haven’t stopped re-reading the collection – such is the level of engagement in the 16 stories. 

This is a brilliantly woven mosaic of everyday stories about the daily trials and tribulations of Zimbabweans told in a fascinatingly riveting fashion. There is enough variety, technique and theatre to enthrall and sustain the reader’s interest. For example, while Thabisani Ndlovu uses a rustic setting for his story, NoViolet Bulawayo uses a township environment, all to maximum effect. 

In I am an African am I? Mzana Mthimkhulu deals with issues of locus standi that the African rising class has to contend with in its quest to embrace modernity while having the baggage of the extended African family. One man discovers his roots and in the process, himself. 

In Christina the Colourful, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende addresses a woman’s quest to assert herself against a society that is firmly founded on traditions of patriarchy while in A Beast and a Jete; Mapfumo Clement Chihota tackles everyday issues revolving around infidelity among ordinary folk and their recourse to survival instincts. 

Coming so soon after commemorating 16 days of Gender Activism, stories like Making a Woman -told from a male patriarchal perspective and its attendant male insensitivity - reek of crass barbarism. It’s a story that haunts you as you empathize with the female who is being “made into a woman”. 

Aunt Mongi understands sign language – the result of a condition she was born with. But that condition unfortunately arrogates others – her immediate nuclear family and villagers - to decide “what’s good for her”. She must therefore be “made into a woman” so she can start to serve the needs of a husband even though she has categorically stated she does not entertain such thoughts in her immediate- or medium-term plans. 

Thabisani Ndlovu’s narrative focuses on how a whole family and village conspire in repeatedly raping a girl. Her greedy father, feigning concern for her unmarried status, is only interested in the livestock in the form of lobola/roora that he stands to benefit from. “Your Aunt Mongi needs to become a woman before it’s too late. As God’s own creature, she does,” reasons the father. 

Aunt Mongi is a victim twice. Firstly she is a rape victim and secondly she is a police victim or victim of laws that refuse to recognise that rape victims have rights not to be violated so violently and not to be condemned to live daily with the physical reminders of being raped, never mind the psychological trauma.

She suffers in the silence that defines her world while also being victimized for infanticide yet her rapist and accomplices are allowed to go scot-free. She suffers in silence on account of her unawareness of the existence of laws such as the Domestic Violence Act that should protect her against Gender-based Violence. The Act provides protection and relief to victims. 

Sixteen writers contributed to this collection of short stories from Zimbabwe that defines issues that dominated what has come to be termed the “lost decade”. It certainly hasn’t been lost on our story-tellers.

– By Sonny Wadaw.

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma interviewed on 'The Mantle'

2012-01-20T06:41:00.002+02:00

From 'The Mantle', January 18, 2012

http://mantlethought.org/content/gambit-art-creating-novuyo-rosa-tshuma

The following conversation took place via email. Between Novuyo and myself(Emmanuel Iduma), we exchanged about 35 emails, in which I was greatly moved by her dedication (as you would see) to her writing, her understanding of her craft, and her willingness to engage. I have never met Novuyo in person, but it feels as though I have known her for a long time. Indeed, there are few of the writers scheduled in this series that I can recognize from a distance. I am yet to fully come to terms with what this means, suggests.

Novuyo says about herself: “When not going about the nuisance of living, I am writing.” She is currently pursuing a degree in Economics and Finance at the University of Witwatersrand. In 2009, she won the Intwasa Short Story Competition for ‘You in Paradise.’ Her short stories have been featured in anthologies, including The Bed Book of Short Stories (Modjaji Books, 2010); A Life In Full and Other Stories: Caine Prize Anthology 2010 (New Internationalist, 2010)and Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe (amaBooks, 2011). I have provided links to her stories below.

Both Novuyo and I have expressed a wish to meet in person.

EMMANUEL IDUMA: For the benefit of all of us, describe your writing table? Do you keep a strict schedule, working on this table?

NOVUYO ROSA TSHUMA: My writing space is where I live; an apartment. I will write anywhere in this space; on my student’s desk; on the floor, on the couch, in bed, with my laptop perched on my lap. I write in bouts; spurts, I would call them – something about that elusive thing called a muse – but really it is more about taking advantage of your free time – I have studies with which to juggle my writing; living too – and getting work that needs to be done, done.

IDUMA: Was there a point when writing became a decision, or part of a decision?

TSHUMA: Indeed there was; at the point when I discovered the contemporary African writers, I became overwhelmed by the realisation that the culmination of my writing into something meaningful would require a conscious cultivation on my part. This was end of August 2007. I had always been writing, but had never consciously thought of it. Probed by a deep, jagged sense of writing and career crisis, I dropped out of my architecture programme at NUST University and ventured into a year of soul searching, some fumbling, as it were, in the dark.

IDUMA: Did you feel, at the time, that dropping out of the Architecture programme was necessary for your writing? The conscious cultivation you refer to, does it also include sacrifice, the choosing of an alternative career?

TSHUMA: Architecture is a field that requires dedication and a great level of passion. This dedication and passion was not something I could ever sacrifice willingly to architecture – while we were learning about great and inspiring architects I was busy day dreaming about great and inspiring writers – it became evident that it was not for me.

A conscious cultivation is to say: I shall dedicate time to honing my craft, to nurturing writing, to seeking opportunities that foster growth in my writing. This automatically reduces time for other opportunities and informs the paths you take.

IDUMA: To get on with his days work, Hemingway sharpened up to seven pencils. Do you sharpen pencils, too?

TSHUMA: Mine is work done on the computer. Rather, I sharpen my writing momentum.

IDUMA: A sense of dislocation surrounds your stories, the kind that is replete with the familiarity of an itinerant’s disorientation. But do you think that because you are outof Zimbabwe, you write aboutZimbabwe? The kind of thing that happens to a writer in diaspora, in exile?

TSHUMA: Hmmm. I am out of Zimbabwe, indeed, but I am so close to it – South Africa is a close neighbour – as to be init without really being in it. Perhaps it is this intimate distance that may allow me a landscape perspective I may not possess were I totally immersed in Zimbabwe. The relationship between Zimbabwe and South Africa is a very interesting and complex one, you see, and here I speak of the social dynamics. Zimbabweans, like many foreigners here, have permeated the South African culture. We are, literally, everywhere. Our interaction with this environment, though, which is sometimes hostile, has something of a corrupt cadence to it. For some, there is a need to belong, to find seams of familiarity in terms of tribe and culture, in which to embed themselves, and reap the many benefits of a country as advanced, in structural terms, as South Africa. For others, there is a visceral reaction against this environment. I am fascinated by the contradictions of this love-hate relationship.

Now, I believe the sense of dislocation which you speak about represents a broad unplugging that plagues one when one is in foreign lands. The feeling of not really belonging is a very stark, if not disorienting one. And one feels this no more than in the complicated landscape that is South Africa. There is an ignorance within the formal halls of South Africa of the foreigner and his place here outside the cliché views of ‘illegal immigrant’. This only serves to further alienate the foreigner, so that he skulks about as something not wanted, per se, but rather tolerated, within this space.

IDUMA: Has the friction of South African politics affected you in any way? Do you, by studying in South Africa, by being a witness to xenophobia, Jacob Zuma, crime, etc., long for home? Are the Zimbabwean characters in your fiction related to a feeling of corporeal dislocatedness? Perhaps a feeling of melancholic homesickness?

TSHUMA: South African politics affect me in a personal sense in so far as they affect my quality as a Zimbabwean living here in South Africa. Being randomly stopped on the street and asked to produce identification, ever aware that I ‘do not belong’.

Do I suffer from homesickness? No. I love home without wanting to be in it. What I am more interested in is a geography that may act as a buoy for my sense as a writer. In this sense, I may claim a melancholic homesickness in terms of my writing. Which is in itself a shadowy concept as my writing is not purely a culmination of geography, but may lay claim to abstract homes. I can say that my coming to South Africa provided fertile soil for my roots as a writer, perhaps in a way home may never have, in terms of opportunity, in terms of ‘opening my eyes’, in terms of crushing my naivety. And yet, home becomes the manure which I use to feed these roots. So, it is all inter-connected. Do I share a certain romanticisation with South Africa? Certainly not. I am not disillusioned by my relationship with her. We are ambivalent about one another. But, the social dynamics of this place are so broad and so complex, as to be fascinating.

So, perhaps I may go so far as to say I do not want to necessarily commit myself to geography. It is not helpful to myself as a writer to do so. New spaces provide new, fascinating interactions; you find that geography exposes different dimensions of yourself. Is the me in Zimbabwe the same me that is in South Africa? Not entirely; the rules of each space provide different opportunities for self-illumination. What this does, though, is to perhaps cultivate an internal sense of vagrancy.

IDUMA: This is the same thing Gayatri Spivak said, “I fall into a place and I become of that place.” It’s like having roots in the air, so that you become familiar and okay with your disorientation. And this, as you have noted, affects your writing. More or less, your writing appears as a trans-African response to your asymmetry – so that at once you take up the challenge of intersecting Zimbabwe with Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria. There’s the conscious attempt in ‘The King and I’ even ‘In Bed with Ikeji’ to affirm that you are not afraid of your fluidity, that you are at home everywhere, and not at home anywhere. Is this even plausible?

TSHUMA: Intersecting ourselves with different cultures and nationalities is not at all a challenging thing in today’s multi-cultural environment. The writing of it becomes, really, a reflection of our cross-cultural interactions. Venture the streets of Johannesburg and you will hear the laden tones of the Shona, the heavy intonations lugged about by Nigerian pidgin, the staccato English ushered by the French-speaking Congo, the chopping up of syllables by the Chinese. India in the shops – the distinct smell of a curry. Leornard Zhakata blares from a radio on the street; across the road, some Sam Mangwana. All of this, in addition to the rich mesh that is South African culture. The melting pot stews.

IDUMA: Did you think leaving Zimbabwe was important for your writing life? Did you leave only as a person and not as a writer? Or both? Or these lines do not exist for you?

TSHUMA: Cognisant of the importance of education, I left Zimbabwe so as to attend university in South Africa. This move proved fertile to my growth as a writer; South Africa has a lush writing environment.

In retrospect, I may say it is important to seek opportunities that will make you a better writer, that will allow you the opportunity to hone your craft, expose you to an expansive range of reading, and so on.

The person and the writer; hmmm. I would rather put it this way: the writer and his writing need not always converge to a personal point. There are the manipulations of fiction to consider.

IDUMA: Speaking about reading, which African and non-African writers have moved you in the last one year? And which books?

TSHUMA: I enjoyed how Dambudzo Marechera bullied and battered the English language in his famous House of Hunger, bruising it into something unique and beautiful. The authentic characterization in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.Turkish delights in Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence.The eloquent depression in James Baldwin’s Another Country.The detailed meanderings in Teju Cole’s Open City.The disarming use of language in Binyavanga Wainaina’s One Day I Will Write About This Place. The illumination of the mundane into something gripping in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Intepreter of Maladies. The comic, sometimes tragic feminism in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes.

IDUMA: Both ‘Waiting’ and ‘You in Paradise’ conveys what Rushdie, in reference to Dickens, called ‘a pitiless realism’ and ‘a naturalistic exactitude.’ Do you seek to do this? To spark off a feeling that your reader can take hold of your scenes, your character’s souls, their bedraggled existence?

TSHUMA: Well, in retrospect I may be able to say perhaps I seek to do this? But really, the process of writing is something of a subconscious one, I would say, and more intimate. To exact writing may actually rob the tale of the natural flow of the very elements with which one seeks to imbue it. More importantly, it may take out that innate pleasure the writer derives from the process of creating his or her work.

IDUMA: You speak, interestingly, of tales with political infusion, which raises, again, the debates on the social function of literature, as well as the question of stereotyping Africa. It is perhaps useful that your writing speaks to afro-modernity, afro-cosmopolitanism as much as it does to matters such as xenophobia, immigration, even Westernization. So do you contemplate that there’s a foreground-background approach to the handling of your themes – that a family’s story can serve as a foreground to an overarching tale about, say, xenophobia?

TSHUMA: I am not at all interested in stereotyping or destereotyping Africa. Let a story be a story first and foremost. To attempt to fight the politics of writing, such as stereotyping or destereotyping, may lead to didactic veins in a story, perhaps even killing the commitment to story one needs. What does this mean? It means that the political infusions which you speak about, as well as the afro-modernity you refer to, are simply products of the reality which I inhabit. My stories are set in Zimbabwe and South Africa, societies in which I have negotiated existence. I write, perhaps not what I see, in the literal sense of the word, but what I experience, in an emotional sense, an intellectual sense, a subconscious sense, what I may choose to experience for others through the page.

Zimbabwe, I will tell you now, as I have experienced it, has been a highly political society, with politics informing daily existence, particularly during the years of severe food and fuel shortages. Existence became politicised, and this is simply because of the extreme political imbalances which rocked the country, seeping into economic and social existence, remapping our interactions with one another. A neighbour was a neighbour on the street; in a mealie-meal queue he became an adversary.

What may help sway Africa away from this ‘stereotype writing’, you may ask? I think one way is reading and reading widely. That certainly has opened up the dimensions of writing for me. For example, I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s two short story anthologies, ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ and ‘Unaccustomed Earth;’, and I was taken by her electrifying illumination of the mundane. Here, for example, one can learn that melodrama – with reference to Africa things such as famine, war, political tension – need not necessarily fuel a story, but that mundane existence may be fuelled by the emotional pull of a story, by the manipulation of language.

Now, does this mean that one cannot write about war, about famine, about political tension? Certainly not. Allow the writer the freedom to write as he chooses; many are impassioned by such experiences, and the rendering of such experiences cannot be dismissed as obsolete simply because so much has been written about them. They are relevant in so far as they continue to exist. As such, political tension may be a fresh angle for me in so far as it is that it is my experience, what I choose to experience for others. The issue, I would say, is never, really, about the experience itself, about war or famine or hunger, really, but about our different comprehensions and internalisations and handling of such experience, and the differing geographies these experiences inhabit. To broadly dismiss a piece of writing as ‘another tale on hunger or war or famine’ is to, sadly, miss the finer points of a tale; to miss the characterisation, to miss the setting of a particular space, to miss the interaction of language with emotion. Let a story fail only because it misses what it aims to do; perhaps because the characters are flat, or what-have-you.

Actually, the idea of stereotyping Africa in literature may actually lie not with the writer primarily, but with those critical halls that put a beam on a particular spectrum of writing. Must the writer now suffer for this?

IDUMA: The writer has the freedom to write as she chooses, of that everyone agrees. But the African writer often faces a different accusation, which is that the freedom she expresses is misplaced, owing to a craving for Western praise, accreditation, prizes. It is a dangerous as well as preposterous accusation, this. But the imagination, as Mukoma wa Ngugi writes, cannot be moved by ideology, otherwise it gives the ideology a different form. Maybe you can reinforce your opinion, speaking less of freedom, but more about the compulsiveness we often face when we want to tell a story?

TSHUMA: I speak of a freedom because that is precisely what it is. In our eagerness to destereotype the stereotype, we risk creating new stereotypes. I have already spoken about how primary interest needs to lie with the ingredients of the story and how they come together to do what they do.

Let us not be unfair by being dishonest in our honesty. Praise is a natural human desire. Writing motives now; well, they are a tricky thing. Writing for prizes must be a difficult, sad, if not disappointing thing, though, as literature cannot be exacted like mathematics. But prizes themselves, well, they expose a writer, may elevate his career. You yourself say this, that ‘the art of writing fiction thrives on validation.’

But let us not be so condescending towards the writer; his creative process cannot just be a fickle thing - fickle motives alone may be cause for a fickle pen. I will say this: as a writer, I welcome the opportunity to better my craft, opportunity to better my writing.

Once we agree that the writer cannot exist, survive and flourish merely upon fickle motives for his writing – because writing really is hard work and writing excellence requires, primarily and above all motives, that dedication and personal commitment to the creative process in and of itself first and foremost – we may then be honest about the relationship between the African writer and the West. Let us not fault the West for her excellent writing schools, her rich literary industry, her well-cultivated readership. The significance of her literary prizes, how they have the power to, literarily, like a magic wand, transform a writer’s career. And how all of this has benefited the African Writer: many of the African writers who flourish are based in the West. This is perhaps a reflection of our hostile literary industry in Africa, how it is difficult to survive as a writer in Africa. Yes? But let us not be so sullen about the West in terms of the African Writer, because opportunity is indeed a generous thing, trickling down, invariably, to the source: the African writer goes to the West, is afforded the opportunity and resources to hone his or her craft, produces some stunning work, wins some accolades, becomes a writing beacon…and then look, something like a Farafina Trust is born in Africa, something like a Kwani?, affording space, opportunities and resources for the writer within Africa, remapping Africa’s interactions with her own literature. Nadine Gordimer refers to it in her compilation ‘Telling Times’, how the writer in Africa faces the extra burden of concerning herself with the quality of education, with cultivating readership.

IDUMA: Let’s return to your earlier response on critics, and the story being a story first, before anything else. Have you received reviews you considered under-representative of what you tried to do? Do you think of those reviews? What do you suppose is a useful way to deal with this? And is it true for you what Hemingway said – “Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading”?

TSHUMA: There is no need to worry about dealing with reviews; enjoy the positive reviews – they may well keep a young writer going in a hostile industry where rejection is the norm. You may pick up a useful element in the constructive ones; and well, the shattering ones…I don’t see the point in allowing yourself to become a shattered writer. It does nothing for your writing stamina. Keep your eye on your writing, and how you may improve it.

Well, for a writer, I would say finding pleasure in your own writing is natural, perhaps has a dose of writer's vanity in it. Reading becomes an interactive process between the reader and the writing; hence, although the writer may judge the measure of his own work by his enjoyment of it - tricky thing as one is so close to one's own work as to sometimes be blinded by a superficial sense of self-flattery - at some point he needs to apply ruthless honesty in the assessment of his own work. Because well, we write so others may read, and if we agree on the significance of this, then we may agree on our responsibility to present our work in its best form.

IDUMA: It is easy to suspect that when you use words like ‘self-examination’, ‘self-consciousness’, ‘self-depiction’ you give in to a pleasure symptomatic to the writing process. Are you thereby agreeing that writers spend so much time trying to understand who they are, their place in the world, and how best to express that sync?

TSHUMA: Hmmm. Perhaps. In memoir writing, indeed one undergoes a direct, intimate, introspective and retrospective view of oneself. In fiction work, perhaps it does not matter so much. It is the jagged pieces of existence that make it interesting, and not the pieces that sync together.

IDUMA: If we agree on this, then you may also agree that it is equally necessary for a writer to be burdened with divesting herself in a work? There are bits of yourself, it is proposed, in every story you have written; your characters are not entirely fictitious.

TSHUMA: Not necessary, I would say. But it is an element that is ever there; one cannot run away from it. It is an unnecessary burden, for it will invariably be there, this element of ‘oneself’, at different levels.

IDUMA: Your constant foreground is family life – the disorientation, mostly, that surrounds it. In this you are not alone – other contemporary African writers have explored the subject. What is this attraction to family? Is this reminiscent of clichéd references to ‘African family life’ ‘African traditional life’, or is there a striking modern connotation?

TSHUMA: African family life is a rich mosaic; Africanism has always rooted itself in community and has always put community above the individual; the family becomes, perhaps, a miniature view of community. African family life continues to flourish even in the face of modernisation; the cliché lies only in the reference of the term; the experience is a relevant and fascinating phenomenon.

IDUMA: Are you working on anything at the moment?

TSHUMA: Yes.

IDUMA: What is that?

TSHUMA: It looks like a book.

IDUMA: How did you feel when you were shortlisted for the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009? And did you feel differently when you won the competition? And afterwards did you say, I am a writer now? (Chuckling) What did you say to yourself afterwards?

TSHUMA: I was excited; green, clinging onto wispy strings to form something of a progression in my novice writing steps; it was super-cool. Winning was, of-course, a nice thing; afterwards I looked myself in the mirror, scratched my chin, nodded and said; yeah, we aren’t too bad, this thing called writing and I.

IDUMA: What difference do you strive for in your writing? Wit? Stylistic dissidence? Inventiveness? Or are you intent at striking a familiar chord in a reader’s heart, making a character look familiar to lived experience? You’ve termed your genre ‘realist fiction’? What did you mean?

TSHUMA: I may look for something different in different pieces of writing. The fun lies in the experimentation. Difference? Hmmm. Difference cannot, for me, be a conscious thing, it becomes a futile thing. Rather, I simply seek to ‘utilise my writing voice’, that voice that is ‘me’. By realist fiction I meant fiction based on the spaces we inhabit, our interaction with our environment.

IDUMA: In the yet soon-to-be published ‘Doctor S’, your voice becomes perceivably sharper, which is the same with ‘The King and I’. So is it true that constant experimentation is the pathway to affirmation, yes?

TSHUMA: Nothing substitutes for practice. Read and read and read; write and write and write. Write some more. Read some more.

IDUMA: And yet another question, the last, on this – a certain writer said that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardness in first trying to make something that has not previously been made. Have you experienced awkwardness in any form, especially because you say you are not conscious of attempting a ‘difference’? Is this conception of an unavoidable awkwardness altogether misplaced?

TSHUMA: That is how we learn; like the first wobbly baby steps, we learn to trust our own feet by trying, stumbling, at times falling. But there is that thing called writing personality.

IDUMA: Do you presume, having described writing as a ‘state’, even a ‘constant’ one, that you will have a lifelong career as a novelist, a storyteller? Are you often shaken, like Joan Didion, by the suspicion that no one out there is listening, and that your talent will not necessarily contribute differently to an understanding of who we are?

TSHUMA: Self-doubt is a writer’s inseparable companion. When you stop doubting, you stop striving, stop growing, stop learning. Do not make self-doubt your closest counsel, though; it may well cripple you with its wicked whispers, its creeping laughter. Adopt determination, even a little dose of obsession, once in a while, and let them fuel your pen.

It is useful to inhabit the inner state first; the private sphere of you and your story. Then, having written something, and wishing to share it with others, you may lay it bare, for public inspection. You need to be, as a writer, your greatest critic and your greatest motivator, need to know when to interchange these roles. Having faced rejection, you may mope at the pain of it and swear never to write again; but after a while, you find you are at it, and you are enjoying it so much that not even the possibility of yet more rejection can derail you. You want to take this thing called writing and master it, and just master it, and do it until you ‘have it’.

I enjoy writing. Get lost in it. Such enjoyment becomes addictive. Write; let the readers read.

IDUMA: What do you find yourself doing when not writing? How does this impact/impart your writing?

TSHUMA: Oh, I like to think I am a normal person. I do all those living things, those people things, those socializing things, those eating and sleeping things. Those reading things. Those must go to the grocery store things. Those need to read-for-a-test things. Impact my writing? Oh, sometimes you see things and experience things as you go about these living things, and one day, boom! They are scribbling on paper. If writing is an obsession, let us at least agree that it is sweet.

Read More:

Anthologies/Print Journals:

'Crossroads', in Where To Now Anthology, amaBooks Publishers, 2011, Parthian Books, 2012

'The King and I' in A Life in Full and Other Stories, Caine Anthology, New Internationalist 2010

'In Bed with Ikeji' in Bed Book of Short Stories Anthology, Modjaji Books, 2010

'Big Pieces, Little Pieces' in StoryTime African Roar Anthology, 2010

Links to Online Works:

'You in Paradise' winning story of the Intwasa Short Story Competition (African Writing Online)

'Waiting' (Munyori Literary Journal)

'Still Life' (Oracles d' Afrique)

Interviews:

Reading 2010 - Wealth of Ideas

Geosi Reads

Conversations with Writers

Essays/Contributions/ Articles:

'My Visa Nightmare at the Nigerian Embassy'

Review of Petina Gappah's 'An Elegy for Easterly'

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma - Big Pieces, Little Pieces (reviewed by Damian Kelleher)

Intwasa Competition Unveils Writing Talent (The Zimababwean, 2009)

Chimamanda, Pamuk, My Choice always - Tshuma

Zim's collective memory, conscience preserved in 'Together'

2012-01-14T10:07:00.002+02:00

The Financial Gazette, Friday, 13 January 2012 11:48

Review by Diana Rodriguez

Modern African writers and poets, like the griots or praise poets in earlier times, hold a special place in society. While the job of the griot was to give praise to the traditional chief of the tribe, by virtue of his important position, the griot was able to throw in a fair amount of criticism, without being called to task. Today's African writers have a similar function: by telling it like it is, they are able to preserve the memory of the nation, while acting simultaneously as a collective conscience.  

Two such writers are baby boomers, Julius Chingono and John Eppel. Both spent their early years in Rhodesia, survived the liberation war and enjoyed the heady first years of an independent Zimbabwe. The stories they tell in Together, a joint publication by amaBooks Publishers of their poems and stories, date mostly from the year 2000, vividly recalling the country's ‘lost decade'. In these troubled years, land reform displaced almost a million farm workers and their dependents, savings were lost forever, and an ageing population whose children fled to the Diaspora in search of jobs, was left to fend for itself in a country without food security or law and order. 

In 2012, medical aid societies are functioning again, and supermarkets stock every kind of food.  Memories of past privations are but dimly remembered, until the reader happens upon The Pact by John Eppel. Four elderly widows, Jean, Mavis, Harriet and Dorothy, pool their resources by moving into Dorothy's ‘large, rambling house in Burnside.  When a large pot of soup the ladies are making for thirty street kids is overturned by troublemakers, Mavis is severely burned. Not being able to afford medical aid, her friends treat her burns with aloe vera cut from the garden. Their ministrations fail, and before Mavis dies, the ladies enforce the pact they made, that ‘if ever life became too much of a burden for one of them, all four would die together, by sharing one of Harriet's milk tarts, laced with a deadly Chinese-made rat poison.'  

What begins as a jolly narrative of four good friends playing at becoming writers in their ‘Scribbling Club', doing good deeds and managing to get by, descends into mass suicide and tragedy. 

The Dread Gentleman by Julius Chingono recalls 2005, a year of elections and violence, and the notorious ‘Operation Murambatsvina' when thousands of displaced city dwellers lost their livelihood and the average age expectancy for Zimbabwean women dropped to 34 years. The hero of the tale is a dread-locked businessman who had lost a business in the ‘tsunami' of Murambatsvina. He undergoes a purifying process performed by three Vapostori in spotless white robes, their heads clean-shaven and shining with ‘an abundant application of petroleum jelly.' Talking loudly above the sungura music ‘churning' from a nearby jukebox, the apostles throw holy water on the pavement and nearby Durawall and declare that the gentleman's future enterprise will be blessed and that ‘the public will see good in the goods that will be sold here'. 

Chingono's light touch and humour make him a good companion to any avid reader. As a man of the people, he makes us aware of the difficulties of surviving in Zimbabwe: but he also brings the life and laughter of the townships and the ready wit of conversations during long ET rides into our immediate experience.  At times John Eppel's elegant and stylish prose lulls us into a false sense of security. Beautiful images in his poetry evoke the scent of buddleia, cestrum and syringa blossom. But before you can say Euphorbia pulcherrima, he shows us ‘mounds of household rubbish dumped along our public ways', lamenting that our ‘houses reek of poverty, anxiety . . . even terror.' 

Whether Chingono and Eppel will be judged as activists, writers or poets, will depend on you, the reader. Sadly, Julius Chingono passed away in 2011, but John Eppel is just getting into his stride. Keep a close eye on amaBooks Bulawayo for future offerings.

http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/weekend-gazette/11119-zims-collective-memory-conscience-preserved-in-together.html

A Review of 'Together: Stories and Poems by Julius Chingono and John Eppel'

2012-01-12T16:28:00.004+02:00

Reviewed by Emmanuel Sigauke on Wealth of Ideas

One question I remember asking in the late eighties and early nineties in Zimbabwe is: Where are all the white writers? I could easily have concluded that Zimbabwe had no white writers, or that white Zimbabweans could not write. But I remembered that when I started school in the 70s, before Zimbabwe's independence, I had read stories and poems by white writers in school. So, as works by black writers flourished in the eighties, what was happening to works by white writers? John Eppel hints at one of the many possible answers in a short essay in the poetry collection, 'State of the Nation': "None of the Zimbabwean presses would publish me; none of the South African presses. Influential academics (and editors) of anthologies, not only at home but in those countries starched with political correctness like post-independent South Africa, Germany, Canada, and England, dismissed me as morally questionable or simply ignored me."

I remember seeing Eppel at writers' meetings. I remember his [then] explosive poetry renditions, and when I travelled to Bulawayo to launch the city's branch of the Budding Writers of Zimbabwe, he was in the group of participants. He might not have been published, but he was there, together with others, participating, seeking publication, like most of us were. But where were all the other white writers? It's one of those questions that would not yield a clear answer in racially divided Zimbabwe, but things have gotten better, Zimbabweans have learned to work together in the face of the country's crises. And there is no greater witness for this --in literary circles-- than the landmark work 'Together', a publication in which two writers, one black, one white, came together to publish a book. Most of the anthologies published in the country after 2000 show diversity.

'Together' is here. It was co-published by amaBooks (Zimbabwe) and UNO Press (USA). Shortly after, the South African edition followed. Another demonstration of togetherness, of collaboration, among publishers. The book starts with Julius Chingono's writings followed by John Eppel's. It's a beautiful book; I have read from it at different poetry events in Sacramento. I have proudly carried it around. It is one of very few Zimbabwean books published in the USA, so there is pride in that. I love that it's locally available, easy to order in bulk, if needed. Many readers will love it for its humor, the kind of humor salvaged in a place where hope is uncertain. Then there is satire, and, even more surprisingly, blatant criticism of governmental authority. To me, the writings are so sad I missed much of the humor on the first reading.

Chingono's poems tend to be short and incisive. He grabs my attention immediately with "Curiosity", the first entry in the book, about a "He" who heard gunfire outside, opened his door and "never saw / the bullet / that killed his curiosity." The poem reminded me of a childhood friend I lost in the seventies; he was only twelve, but because of his height, he was allowed to attend those all-night party indoctrination (pungwes). The base was ambushed, and as the people took cover and started crawling away, as they had been trained, my friend stood up to take a look at how well the brothers, the comrades, were firing, and a bullet got him and he died. A good work of art has the ability to transcend time, to be applicable to situations in different places. Nothing would stop this poem to resonate with anyone in Sacramento or Oakland, where shootings are common.

Chingono's story "Leave my Bible Alone" features Mudhara Gore, a drunkard who would do anything to keep his Bible, his most valued possession. Even though this is more of an incident that a fully rendered story (you get the sense that there is a lot more that's left unsaid), the piece hints at the state of affairs in the country. The most moving moment for me is not when the Gore falls and inadvertently releases the grip on his bible, nor is it when his wife carries him home in the family wheelbarrow; it is when this specific incident is introduced, in the middle of the story: "Gore joined the usual company of old time guzzlers. At this time backyard drinking joints selling illicit alcohol had sprouted up all over, as municipal beer halls were not operating and legal alcohol was too expensive... Afraid that the drinking hole would be raided by the police at any time, Gore and his friends hastily downed two 750ml bottles of kachasu. They parted in very good spirits, their bibles clutched to their chests." It's not even the social value of alcohol consumption that matters now, but the rapid guzzling meant to bury the larger problems of life. And right here in this paragraph you get the sense that people find solace in two major outlets, alcohol and church, and just as illicit alcohol places have sprouted, so have churches of all sorts and descriptions. Beer and bible are pronounced in the same breath in this story.

In the short story "We Waited", Chingono uses the voice of witness, which maintains the humor element we see in the poetry and his other stories. This is a story of the voter's voice not being respected, of the abuse of the electorate, but amidst such injustices, the voice manages to make us laugh: "We waited. We joked that the weather had joined the British and the Americans in imposing sanctions on us." Over and over again, the Zimbabwean writer has begun to tap into the humorous in the national rhetoric. It comes off as satire, yet too dire to always solicit our laughter with its humor element. The tragic looms larger: "We sat on rubble as we waited, rubble of the buildings destroyed during Murambatsvina when the shelters of the poor people who could not construct permanent structures were demolished by the government. We waited, keen to exercise our right to vote in the Goredema town council elections, a fledgling town west of Harare." Here, not only does the narrator assume I need a definition of Murambatsvina, he also reveals the exact location of Goredema in relation to Harare.

If the narrator is not reporting to a foreign audience, he is perhaps talking to posterity, future readers of this story who may not remember the time, or, suppose Goredema collapses altogether one day, given the rate of destruction in the world of this story, then it helps to offer level of specificity; it contextualizes the story and help reader visualize setting. But that's not all; there is a deep subjective interpretation of his world; the narrator tells the story as it is, from the way he sees it. He tells it in such a natural voice that he probably wouldn't care about the invasive editorial italicization of his points of reference: murambatsvina, maputi, freezits, since his exposition is so clear that italics or not, the the details would still make sense to the reader. Anyway, things don't go on well in "We Waited." They wait for nothing; they don't get to vote for the candidate they want, and their demonstration ends with tragic encounter with riot police.

The voice of witness also narrates "The Dread Gentleman", telling us of transport woes and other hardships the people are experiencing in the country. Commuters wait for hours at the bus terminus: "Fuel was in short supply and government was contiually 'in the process' [sic] of sourcing foreign currency to buy the precious liquid." Although the voice is still communal, talking about the experiences of the "we", the story introduces a specific individual, an object of everyone's curiosity. He too has been affected by the tsunami, which the narrator explains as "the wanton destruction of buidings by the government, named after the tsunami that devastated East Asia and Africa." The narrator, ever generous with detail, adds, " Most emergent business people had their place of work destroyed in the wave of politically motivated destruction carried out by the government to weed out dissent among the urban populace."

This reads like the prose straight out of the independent press' critique of government activities. Perhaps in a place where the press cannot report freely, literature begins to play the role of the independent press, and as readers, we are likely to accept the journalistic details that temporarily delay the story, or we accept that the reporting is the story. This is a common thread throughout this book and other works coming out of this period of Zimbabwean life; the voice of witness, the voice seeking what seems like a distant audience, the voice that's a cry for some intervention, the see-what-they-are-doing to us voice. It is hard to ignore; you connect with at an emotional level, and what you may suspend isn't disbelief but art.

The stories in the anthologies published in the first decade of this century carry this voice; voices reporting Zimbabwe, voices, in the words of NoViolet Bulawayo, "penning Zimbabwe". Perhaps the uniformity of reportage in most stories is a function of the limited publication opportunities in the country; the stories become an identity not so much of the writers but of the one or two publishers selecting the stories that tell the story of Zimbabwe's lost decade. As I have devoured these stories, I have also always felt that the full story, in its complexity, has not yet been told, and I don't want our publishing industry to make the mistakes made in the eighties, of pushing a uniform literature of liberation, laudatory poetry and blame-casting fiction chosen by just a few editors; some of the works then were driven by the euphoria of independence, and this guaranteed them a spot on the national curriculum. Those works that didn't fit in these modes were not promoted, were rejected, or banned. "

The Dread Gentleman" is also about survival. Chingono gives us a snapshot of how people are making ends meet through the parallel market. One example is the suddent emergence, an eruption really, of projects like Sams Electrical Investment, where "we buy and sell all electrical goods. we repair stoves, ions, hitters and all domestic and industry requirements. And all kinds of risk watches." During the decade of Zimbabwe's hardship, many outsiders wondered how people survived, their source of resilience. In this story, Chingono attempts to answer that question. Talking about the crowds who have gathered to support dread gentleman's new enterprise, the narrator says, "They were a peace-loving people who did not retaliate with violence. They did not believe in the old law--an eye for an eye. They did not believe in destructive engagement." Assuming a voice of the voiceless stance, Chingono writes: "They knew that the authorities destroyed their homes, factories, offices, stores, butcheries...They destroyed their small vending markets, their livelihood, without compensation." The critique gets even more stinging: " They knew the government was a soulless machine that did not have blood flowing through its veins. That had not eyes. No ears. That had no heart."

Chingono's poems reveal their truths through humor and conciseness. His short stories, most of them short, are conveyed through the expository voice whose urgent need is to chronicle the experiences of their characters. These are stories whose strength is in content, not so much in form. Collectively, they are a memoir of the Norton community, yet the experiences of these people resonated throughout the country, and they grip the attention of readers anywhere. The collective voice is like a call awaiting our response, a voice seeking to awaken our humanitarian impulses. For other writers, the stories are a storehouse, a documentations of experiences that could trigger other stories, filtered through diverse artistic voices.

John Eppel, on the other hand, experiments with different writing techniques, especially in his poetry, whether he is writing a satire or a sestina, a haiku or quartrain. In fiction, his prose is highly readable, and the narrative is suspenseful, but the content often is presented in a rawness that begs for more filtering or execution. I haven't read his novels yet, and when I do, I will start with the one about the English teacher.

In the poem "Afrika" Eppel features a debate on naming, identity, and progress. One voice questions the use of the letter 'k' to replace the 'c': "Do you think, by spelling out it with a 'k' / that you will make it...well..more Afrikan?" This is a serious question in a world where names are used to show many interpretations of identity and belonging; and the naming system as it relates to Africa and its Diaspora has been used to establish ideas of authenticity, or in some cases, to establish a sense of sovereignty and independence, or just in negate past systems and administrations. Street names have been changed from those of former foreign settlers to those of the new African leadership. There have been jokes about a four-way intersection where all the streets signs bear the name of the country's president, confusing motorists and pedestrians alike. In the poem, the voice in stanza two tries to address the questions asked in stanza one: "Look, friend, sacrifices have to be made.../..let's make a start...let's spell it with a 'k'.

And what's in a name? A lot, no doubt. Even Livingstone was quick to name the Victoria Falls out of his queen, and to this day, that's the name used. And as names are changed, what harm is in that? Not changing names has been known to benefit tourism in some circles, but in others, name change or not, nothing seems to have benefitted the people. That's perhaps the message at the core of the poem, as is hinted in these lines: "[Do you think] calling it Robert Mugabe Way / instead of Grey Street.../...the vendors squatting underneath the sign / will somehow earn more money down the line?" It leaves one to wonder what question the persona would have asked back when it was still Grey. But as the persona points out, parenthetically, like an aside, "What's in a man?" And the question that's not asked is "What's in a woman?"

The story that follows this poem also centers on a debate. "Debate" ridicules the whole idea of a debate in the context of Zimbabwean politics. It's a caricature of the debaters, whose real life identities the narrator does not work hard to conceal. It's a play (a word that will matter in the next story) on the Mbeki-led Zimbabwe talks, and it is very entertaining. That's what it is, entertainment, presented in inventive prose, but too much of a joke that evaporates soon after you finish reading. The story echoes the familiar sayings in Zimbabwean leadership circles. We can easily tell who Comrade Nod; he blames the problems of his country on former colonial powers and on America. He says, " The colonial sun set a long time ago; in 1980....and hence I ....we will never be a colony again." Mr Nod does not believe the country deserves sanctions because the country he leads is "very African and sovereign." Then when he ends his speech, he shouts some slogans presented in an ungrammatical medley of Shona and English, which I suspect has nothing to do with the caricature of the speakers: "pamberi the economy, pasi the drought, pasi sanctions, pamberi...er...me". And all the Shona words are italicized, consistent with some ....conventions, but the issue here is, seriously, that's how the character said it? It definitely has to be part of the caricature: not only are these leaders so articulate in English as they dismiss British imperial tendencies; they are also...inarticulate in their use of Shona. The story succeeds, however, in expressing the author's feelings about the political situation in the country.

The poem 'The Coming of the Rain' is clever. The sarcastic element that builds to the satiric tone serves the intention of the poem. Usually, in a place like Zimbabwe, the rains bring hope. In this poem, the coming of the rain is the only thing that endangers this society, not lack of freedom of speech, not the absence of freewill, not bondage and oppression...just the rain. The next poem, "Ghostly Galleon", deals with that familiar image of the Chinese ship bringing weapons to Zimbabwe. The poet praises Durban Dockers' Union for denying the ship entry. The celebratory tone is short-lived because "the ghostly galleon will be back-- / terror is here to stay". This is consistent with John Eppel's view, expressed in the essay I mentioned earlier, that Zimbabwe has not experienced real freedom since the Smith regime, but in reading these poems and stories, you get the impression that the situation has worsened in the Mugabe years; the euphoria of the eighties was shortlived, and for some, indepedence never came.

The fast-paced story "Democracy at Work and at Play" approaches brilliance in the art of pastiche, or more appropriately, in what Henry Louis Gates calls signifying. In short, Epple signifies on Yvonne Vera's work. Signifying includes a level of acknowledgement and appreciation of another author's work with some room to mock it; it's like a game, which might cause wounds, but in the bigger scheme of literary things, it adds to the value of literary engagement amongs authors or their works. Here Eppel critiques the occasionally unusual use of English in Vera's 'The Stone Virgins', questioning the awkward use of prepositions, what the protagonist calls "faulty grammar and mixed metaphors". The POV narrator seems to ridicule Benate's obsessive appreciation of Vera's work. He has an MA in Vera, and now is thinking of pursuing his doctorate with an emphasis on Vera again. The working title for his dessertation is Democracy at Work and at Play: The Subversive Function of Faulty Grammar and Mixed Metaphors in Yvonne Vera. Eppel believes that Vera's treatment of Gukurahundi in 'The Stone Virgins' is cowardly; it does not capture the horror, and you can see the same view expressed in this short story. I liked, however, how the story communicates with Vera's novel, and I feel we need more of such. Works of literature are related in many ways and at many levels; each work contributes to the multiple perspectives that form a literary tradition. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my copy of Vera's novel to compare notes with Eppel.

Eppel enters the non-fictional, reporter mode we saw earlier in Chingono. Once we reach the piece "Discarded", we are no longer pretending to be in the world of fiction. Reality has taken over, we are in the world of ZANU PF and MDC, political campaigns, AK 47s and Bloody Diamonds. I am reminded of that Orhan Pamuk narrator who abandons the story, and asks the author to just finish,to tell the reader details in the raw. Here, it's as if Eppel have contended with the fact that reality is more fictional than fiction in some situations. It's a story-telling mode he has perfected over the years. Perhaps that's the courage he wanted to see in Yvonne Vera? Forget art; tell us what happened. It's a matter of immediacy, the courage to capture the dangerous as it happens.

The editors concluded the book with one of the best Eppel poems, "Waiting". The topic of waiting is one of the thematic similarities between Chingono and Eppel in 'Together'. In Chingono voters are made to wait and wait, until distater strikes before they even cast their votes, that deadly shift from ballot to bullet. In Eppel's "Waiting", we count the frangipani leaves while explosions from the neighbours' burning rubbish trigger memories of the so-called Rhodesia bush war, which led to the independence of a country in which votes don't count anymore. But where there is hope there is waiting, so we wait, until the narrator tells us, ""The falling leaves remind me / that the day has come and gone for ballots / to be counted, results announced, and I'm / afraid that change will never come." And as long as we know we are afraid, we also know that we can learn not to be afraid; some have called it the gift of fear.

Together, John Eppel and Julius Chingono chronicle the lives of Zimbabweans going through a difficult decade. In their unique ways, these authors bring the reader closer to what was happening in the country, and their collaborative voice is a courageous plunge into subjects many artists often dread. In their statements of necessity, literary craft was not always as critical as conveying the content. It is certainly a book to read, if not for the issues and style, then most definitely for the spirit of the project, the need for collaborative work not only among writers from the same country, but writers across color lines. And given where we are in human development, it's a shame that we have just discovered--in the past decade-- the beauty and strength in working together. In the words of Na'ima Robert, author of 'Far From Home', " if we are to survive as a pluralistic, tolerant nation, we must be able to weave a coherent national narrative, a common ground, a shared history, in light of [our] differences." Togetherness is Zimbabwe's literary imperative.

From http://vasigauke.blogspot.com/2012/01/togetherness-zimbabwes-literary.html

Where to Now? in South Africa's Exclusive Books

2012-01-05T19:30:00.002+02:00

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe is now available in several branches of Exclusive Books across South Africa:

Exclusive Books Eastgate

Exclusive Books Hyde Park

Exclusive Books Rosebank Mall

Exclusive Books Mandela Square

Exclusive Books Menlyn

Exclusive Books Morningside

Exclusive Books OR Tambo International

The books are also available in other South African outlets:

Clarkes Books, Cape Town

Xarra Books, Johannesburg

Love Books, Melville

Boekehuis, Auckland Park

Imbizo Galleries, National Botanical Gardens

The first anniversary of Julius Chingono's death

2012-01-02T11:09:00.004+02:00

Sadly, Julius Chingono died on 2 January 2011, before the publication of Together: stories and poems by Julius and John Eppel.

In this video, John reads Julius' poem No Funeral - recorded during the South African launch of Together at Lobby Books in Cape Town.

Short Writings from Bulawayo II: A must have piece

2011-12-19T06:51:00.005+02:00

The Herald, Monday, 19 December 2011 00:00

Title: Short Writings from Bulawayo Two

Author: Various

Publisher: 'amaBooks

Pages: 116

ISBN: 0-7974-2896-8

Aristotle said politics is the highest form of art because other goods and services borrow their life from people who bow to the force of whips that are cracked in Parliament. This year the main political parties in the country, Zanu-PF and MDC-T, brought many people to attend their meetings in Bulawayo.

Hotels should have used this opportunity to interest them in reading Short Writings from Bulawayo Two for the benefit of the whole hospitality industry in Zimbabwe. This collection of short stories and poems is about the life of people in the City of Kings and its surrounding rural areas. It deals with how people in high-density suburbs make ends meet in the face of economic hardships.

The guests staying in hotels can borrow books from the reception desk for reading in their rooms. Tourists enjoy reading books like this very much. An increase in sales of indigenous literature would have artists smiling all the way to the bank.

Its time hotels saw themselves as part and parcel of the culture of people. A family can go and watch a play at the theatre or it can go and sample an exotic dish at the local inn. Chefs know best that cooking is an art.

Eco-tourism binds art and culture and the hospitality industry together and books fasten that bond. It's natural for birds of the same feather to flock together for their mutual benefit. People of Bulawayo have a crush on Wim Boswinkel. He was born in Holland in 1947 and 'amaBooks published his first novel, Erina, in 2003. In his short story, 2084, he writes about a future that has no language and no alphabet. People express their feelings using their hands and faces.

The artist sees this weird world through the eyes of 17-year-old John and his sweetheart Nomakha. Theirs is love across the colour divide. As they walk through the park, they reflect on what life was like during the Dark Ages compared with the Light Age in which they live.

"People had all become equal," says the author, meaning equal in material possession. "Terrorism and crime had disappeared from the earth, and so had superstition and prejudice." The artist is good at evoking atmosphere.

"They loved," he says of the two, "to roam through the dense vegetation, to dig with their hands into the moist soil and to bring some to their noses to inhale the fragrant aroma of the top layer. It made them feel part of nature, as once mankind had been, in long forgotten primitive days."

Environmentalists should love this story.

Now, any woman worth her salt would feel what MaSibanda goes through when a gunman rapes her while Ncube is lying prostrate. The title of the story, Between Two Men, sums up the position of the husband. Hwange-born educationist Addlis Sibutha describes how the two of them leave the beerhall at closing time. A lone gunman accosts them along the wasteland and warns Ncube to be sensible.

MaSibanda asks herself why Ncube didn't do something to fight off the rapist. Ncube thinks that perhaps MaSibanda knows this man from somewhere. Children, knowing their parents to be boisterous when they are in their cups, ask them why they are in a sullen mood.

Ncube meets the rapist at the bar and other men help him to mete instant justice on the scoundrel. The artist leaves you to imagine how MaSibanda will revenge herself when she has remained at home.

Rapists in Zimbabwe go to jail for seven years. In other countries it's 40. Plumtree-born Christopher Mlalazi (39) is a product in creative writing from Crossing Borders project of the British Council. He tells, in My Meat, the story of Zama.

He shows off to Nsingo the beer that Marx, who has come from South Africa, has bought for him at the bottle store. A dog makes off with braai meat that Zama had hidden in his jacket from the other guy. Zama runs after the dog as Marx buys himself a quart and talks of his girlfriend. Nsingo wishes he could go and work in Egoli. It's a sad story about youth and unemployment.

Derek Huggins joined the BSAP at 18 in 1959. He was CEO of the National Arts Foundation for 13 years up to 1988. Weaver Press has published his first collection of stories, Stained Earth.

P/O Greg Stanyon, in Crossing the Devine, is driving from Enkeldoorn back to camp in Sabi Valley. He finds workers poking a bird with sticks on the side of the road. Stanyon takes home this giant eagle owl and decides to put it down when he finds out that its wing is broken. He makes a bad shot and the bird takes a long time dying. In his remorse, a poignant past event pricks his conscience.

Seeing the bird fighting for its life becomes unbearable to him. This brings to mind the way the chicken tries to defy death when you have cut off its head. Horrible! The picture that Zambian-born Hezekela Mlilo (30) drew for the cover depicts the ideal woman by any standard - stout as a drum and strong enough to collar four oxen to the span single-handed. He won an award for graphics at the Mbira Art Exhibition and was nominated for Nama award.

The draw-card in the collection is Pathisa Nyathi. This member of the Zimbabwe Academic and Non-Fiction Authors Association has done justice to AmaNdebele culture through his works.

Pathisa Nyathi is first among equals in literary journalism in Zimbabwe. He ran columns in four publications at the same time and is public relations officer at Town House in Bulawayo.

In Illuminating Flames, this prolific writer pays tribute to the ancients who gave him wisdom.

The leaping crimson flames

Of mopane wood fires

Out in rural Kezi

Still flicker large in my city mind.

Another poet is John Eppel, born in 1947. His first novel, Great North Road,

won the M-Net prize in South Africa. In My Dustbin, he says:

These children

have acquired the patience of queuing;

children of neighbourhood; suburban;

queuing at my bin for a lucky dip.

Books, rights activists should have Short Writings from Bulawayo Two on the shelf.

http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29414

Zim Writers document 'lost decade'

2011-12-10T10:44:00.003+02:00

Zim writers document ‘lost decade'

Diana Rodrigues

Wednesday, 07 December 2011 18:03

IN spite of the warnings and advice of our teachers and parents never to judge a book by its cover, it would be difficult to ignore Veena Bhana's cover design, based on a sculpture by Arlington Muzondo, for amaBooks of Bulawayo's latest collection of short stories, Where to Now?

The earthy colours and ancient striations of the stone carving give more than a hint of the dreams, aspirations and adventures of some of Zimbabwe's most important writers, all to be found within this slim volume. Most of the writings in this collection have been inspired by events taking place between 2000 and 2010, a time that has come to be called Zimbabwe's "lost decade". These were the years of violence, inflation and economic collapse, when many fled to the diaspora, seeking new livelihoods and ways to support their siblings and the ageing parents they left behind. These stories are important in their placing of Zimbabwe in a history of events, that will determine all our futures, and eventually provide an answer to the question "where to now?" Although the writers deal with serious issues, a light touch and sense of comedy often temper the darkness and despair wrought by poverty in the lives of the characters. In Tomato Stakes, John Eppel describes school holidays spent with his friend Lofty Pienaar in his parents' house, a pondok made of burlap coal bags sewn together that "flapped" in the wind. Adventures trapping mice in the bush and swimming in algae-infested reservoirs ended when the boys left school. Lofty trained at Gwebi Agricultural College and became a successful commercial farmer. When the farm invasions began, he was left with a mere 10 acres of his original 350-acre spread at Umgusa. The resourceful Lofty, like a character from Boys Own Adventures, then embarked on a five-year plan to grow catha edulis, a tree whose leaves and bark are used to make Bushman's Tea, a stimulating beverage with medicinal properties. Rejoicing that Lofty has remained on the land, and will be able to support his wife and four children, the reader is astounded by a turn of events in the narrative. The outcome is as shocking as it was unexpected. "Your white masters must be delighted with you!" Mark hissed into my ear as we filed out of the general manager's office into the wide corridor, is the intriguing first sentence in a story by Mzana Mthimkulu, entitled I am an African, am I? Accused by his work mates of being un-African and a sell-out because he eats sadza with a knife and fork and because he returns his unused fuel allocation to his white boss, Timothy begins to question himself and his motives as a purchasing manager in a beer brewing company. When a colleague accuses him of preferring to watch satellite TV to visiting his relatives in the townships and rural areas, he takes this criticism to heart. Loading his Mazda 626 with two bags of mealie-meal, he drives to Pumula Township to visit his aunt. Delighted, the aunt calls down blessings on Timothy. He eventually returns to the city, happy that the spirits of his ancestors have spoken to him: He resolves in future to give up golf in favour of family visits. Like an enticing box of chocolates, there are many more stories in this collection to read and enjoy at leisure. Where to Now? is to be launched next year by Parthian Books, one of Wales' most respected publishers. Both amaBooks and Parthian are diverse and contemporary in their range. Publishing a wide variety of novels, short stories, poetry, local history and culture titles, they provide encouragement and support for many of Zimbabwe's established and budding writers. - (You can also visit the publisher's website: www.amabooksbyo.com)

Review from the Financial Gazette (http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/weekend-gazette/10873-zim-writers-document-lost-decade.html)

Song of the Carnivores School Competition

2011-12-04T14:19:00.008+02:00

The prize-giving ceremony for the schools component of the Song of the Carnivores Lyric Writing Competition was held on 29 November at the Academy of Music in Bulawayo. The four winners from the Bulawayo schools are shown in the photograph - the overall winner being Jordan Edwards of Whitestone School.

The competition was organised and judged by 'amaBooks and the prizes were presented by Brian Jones of 'amaBooks and Maureen Stewart British Council Zimbabwe. Dr Netty Purchase, the coordinator of the project, talked to the audience about the importance of the five carnivores - Cheetah, Leopard, Wild Dog, Spotted Hyena and Lion - during the ceremony.

The entries from the four winners will be considered, together with the winning entries from the adult competition - from Edgar Langeveldt and Peggy Lendrum, to be put to music by composer Richard Sisson and performed during the Bulawayo Music Festival in 2012.

Publishing Workshop in Bulawayo

2011-12-04T11:44:00.003+02:00

A workshop on publishing was held at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo on Saturday 3 December. The event was organised by the Zimbabwean Academic and Non-fiction Authors Association and was facilitated by Isaac Mpofu, Brian Jones of 'amaBooks Publishers and Pathisa Nyathi.

World AIDS Day and a library at Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo

2011-12-02T11:10:00.004+02:00

World AIDS Day was commemorated at Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo with the announcement of support from the US Embassy in Zimbabwe for the Opportunistic Infection Clinic Resource Centre at the hospital for young people living with HIV/AIDS - the only one of its kind in Zimbabwe. All 1500 young people between the ages of 13 and 24 who are registered at the clinic can take advantage of the facilities of the resource centre.

'amaBooks are helping to set up the library at the centre, which will include non-fiction and fiction titles, including those from Zimbabwe. As Ambassador Charles Ray stated in his speech at the event: "The pieces of literature will, we hope, inspire readers and broaden horizons." This project follows on from 'amaBooks' involvement in helping to establish reading groups of young people in the city.

A similar library is also to be set up in Matabeleland North, as part of Kariyangwe Mission Hospital's Home Based Care Programme.

John Eppel and Julius Chingono’s Together nominated for a Pushcart Prize

2011-12-02T09:14:00.004+02:00

Together, which features stories and poems by John Eppel and the late Julius Chingono, was co-published earlier this year by ’amaBooks of Bulawayo, the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press and the University of New Orleans Press.

The Pushcart Prize, published every year since 1976, is considered the most honoured literary project in America. It is a prize for the best “poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot” published in the small presses of America over the previous year. The work of John Eppel and Julius Chingono qualifies because of the co-publication with the University of New Orleans Press.

The founding editors for the Pushcart Prize were Anais Nin, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Newman, Daniel Halpern, Gordon Lish, Harry Smith, Hugh Fox, Ishmael Reed, Joyce Carol Oates, Len Fulton, Leonard Randolph, Leslie Fiedler, Nona Balakian, Paul Bowles, Paul Eagle, Ralph Ellison, Reynolds Price, Rhoda Schwartz, Richard Morris, Ted Wilentz, Tom Montag, and William Phillips.

Writers who were first noticed from being nominated for the prize include Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving, Rick Moody, and many more.

Together is available in outlets throughout Zimbabwe, South Africa and North America, and can also be purchased outside of those areas online through the African Books Collective and other websites.

Zimbabwe Writers Association Meeting

2011-11-26T12:09:00.002+02:00

The Zimbabwe Writers Association (ZWA) cordially invites you to the first of its monthly meetings on Saturday 3 December 2011 at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, 20 Julius Nyerere Way, Harare from 2:00pm to 4:30pm in the library extension (upstairs) for the purposes of discussion and readings. You are reminded to bring your $10 membership fees.

The major objective of ZWA is to bring together all willing individual writers of Zimbabwe in order to encourage creative writing, reading and publishing in all forms possible, conduct workshops, and provide for literary discussions.

Photograph courtesy of Memory Chirere

More 'amaBooks titles available as ebooks

2011-11-18T15:41:00.004+02:00

More titles from 'amaBooks are now available as ebooks through into-ebooks, including Christopher Mlalazi's Dancing with Life: Tales from the Township, John Eppel's Hatchings, Intwasa Poetry, Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe, Short Writings from Bulawayo I, II and III, and Pathisa Nyathi's Zimbabwe's Cultural Heritage. All are priced at E12.00.

Please look at http://www.into-ebooks.com/books_by_publisher/amabooks_publishers/

WordsEtc Review of Together

2011-11-10T05:57:00.002+02:00

Review by Thabisani Ndlovu

In a groundbreaking joint publication project involving two Zimbabwean writers (one black and the other white), as well as three publishers, Together reflects the innovation that went into this collaboration, emerging as a refreshing and highly symbolic text. It presents short stories and poems by two veteran writers, disturbing the racial and political polarities that have come to characterize the rule of ZANU PF. Both writers strike the pose of a jester in their views of the Zimbabwean “crisis.”

Following the axiom that the truth is told in jokes, both writers use humour as social commentary to explore shared abject poverty, shortages of basic commodities, state brutality, the travesty of justice, the abuse of political power as well as the complicity of the oppressed in their oppression. The two poke fun at the “absurd” that has been normalised. Focus is on the everydayness of life to illustrate that in a country characterised by extremist attitudes, the truth lies in between; that in fact, the very stuff of everyday life exposes the vacuity that so characterises the rhetoric of racial and political extremism.

Chingono uses a deceptively simple style. His sympathies, like those of Eppel, lie with the poor and downtrodden who may be wantonly killed in cross-fire, kept waiting by politicians only interested in getting votes, made poor and hungry through political machinations or have their houses bulldozed by the government in a “clean-up” exercise. Yet in this depressing and depraved condition, Chingono sees the funny side of life, for example in the stories “Shonongoro” and “The Toilet Issue.” One senses though, an underlying sadness threatening to cloud the humour. The metal number plate of a car that makes up part of a shack door in the poem “20-044L;” the jostling for space in a bus in “At the Bus Station”, and the emptiness of greetings occasioned by extreme deprivation in “Greetings” all suggest a deep-seated sadness from which one of the means of escape is alcoholism. In “We Waited” Chingono employs that archetypal trope of waiting in Zimbabwean literature as epitomised by Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain. The waiting in this context is symbolic not only of arrested development but decay, entrapment and destruction.

John Eppel’s wit is more direct and acerbic. Most of his pieces speak of deprivation. The first, “Malnourished Sonnet” signals his keen sense of observation, especially the dearth of responsible leadership. The poem “Afrika” shows such vacuity as does “Culture.” Eppel exposes the ridiculous or absurd in Zimbabwean politics. In “The Debate,” the three candidates are battling to see who will be “allowed to dish out cabinet posts, including the newly established, and coveted one, of Minister of Rural Beauty Pageants.” Of interest to Eppel as well is Zimbabwe’s troubled past, especially Gukurahundi in the pieces “Democracy at work and at Play,” “Broke Buttock Blues”, and “Bhalagwe Blues”. The writer exposes the hypocrisy of the country’s leadership in attempting to erase large scale state perpetrated murder that was ethnically motivated.

The only thing that short story enthusiasts may be disappointed with is that the stories tend to be anecdotal with not much attention to development of character and as such emerge as “sketches”. Perhaps that is the result of their expository mode. It is difficult though, to fault the poems. Overall, Chingono and Eppel not only remind us of a hard time in Zimbabwe’s history but also remind us that the bond of suffering that Zimbabweans share has a common source of misery – a corrupt self-serving oligarchy. The bond of suffering also suggests a wider conception of nation beyond race, ethnicity and political affiliation.

Thabisani Ndlovu is a writer of fiction, has a PhD in African Literature and is Deputy Director of the International Human Rights Exchange Programme at Wits University, Johannesburg.

YouTube video of the Bulawayo launch of Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe

2011-10-29T18:44:00.005+02:00

A YouTube video of the Bulawayo launch of Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe, featuring Owen Maseko's live interpretation of NoViolet Bulawayo's story in the collection as it is read at the launch is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0U_ro4bhqo

John Eppel's Hatchings reviewed by Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende

2011-10-29T18:37:00.001+02:00

The incisively satirical novel Hatchings, by John Eppel, is set in the city of Bulawayo, during the doldrum years of post independence Zimbabwe. In it we find Elizabeth Fawkes and her family, a representation of the ever dwindling middle class and middle class values of solid family ties, sound education, hard work and integrity. The story centres around the Fawkes family, who are in a sense the barometer of normality against which the reader can measure all the other characters in the novel. Some of these characters are extreme criminals of foreign extraction whose predatory instincts bring them to the chaos that is Zimbabwe and become the opportunistic parasites feeding voraciously off the dying country. Such an unsavory character we find in the person of Sobantu ‘the butcher’ Ikheroti, who is devoid of conscience or anything that amounts to human sympathy. Ikheroti is involved in the business of providing illegal abortions to pregnant underage girls, who have been put in the family way, thanks to the rampant penchant for “Black pussy”, by two British expatriate primary school teachers, Simon and Nicholas. Enter the Ogojas, Nigerians, who deal illicitly in stolen emeralds and who are in business with Ikheroti, who incidentally pimps the girls he provides abortions for so that they can pay him back for relieving them of their unwanted babies. The dead babies are passed on to the esteemed artist Ingeborg Ficker, who is creating an organic statue using hills valleys and trees called the Gwanda Giantess who will be birthing these babies.

Eppel’s characters move along the natural continuum of class and racial composition of Bulawayo (and therefore Zimbabwe), sardonically invoking stereotypes of the various classes and racial groups. There are the residents of Cornwall Street in the city centre: the Amazambane and the Ilithanga families, Ndebeles who cohabit in one small flat, all 14 of them. There is the old coloured family, the Reeboks, whose one son was hanged for murder, the other was doing time and the mother of their 11 year old granddaughters was strung out on drugs. The bitter divorcee, Aphrodite Fawkes, and the bachelor Boland Lipp, in possession of pathetically good heart and a love for classical music and the colour green, complete the residents on Cornwall Street. Let us not forget the Indian landlord who is reminded of the plight that befell his kinsmen in Uganda when he inquires about the number of people living in flat 3- the Ndebele flat.

Enter the Mashitas - the Shonas, who have turned their whole yard into a maize and vegetable farm, the Macimbis - the Ndebeles, who have assisted nature by denuding their yard of all vegetation and swept the ground clean of its topsoil, the Voerwords of Afrikaans ancestry and the Pigges, whose lineage hails out of England. All of them are neighbours to the Fawkes family and their children, Black and white play in the neutral zone which is the Fawkes’ backyard. They are in what was formerly a middle class neighborhood but the clear delineations that defined such a neighbourhood have become somewhat blurred.

Then we move on into the world of the obscenely rich, those who can afford to waste water in a city whose resources are fast dwindling. It is the world of the born again Christians with their ostentatiously wealthy pastor whose powerful preaching of the gospel of prosperity induces mind numbing orgasms to the women folk in the congregation. It is the world of true believers who sing and dance and clap and in trancelike state sign huge cheques for the Lord. It is from this world that the Black Rhino elite private school draws its student population with the sole aim of “ensuring the high standards of Rhodesian education”. At this school, the students, over indulged children of the wealthiest farmers and business men excelled in those aspects of Rhodesian education which mattered the most: “rugby, water polo, bullying and geography”. In this setting we find the very ordinary Boland Lipp as the English literature teacher who strives to impart a love for the written word to his students, who are only really interested in brand new fast cars, motor cycles and sex.

In stark contrast to Black Rhino School is Prince Charming High School, embedded in one of the ghetto townships of Bulawayo. It is here that Simon and Nicholas the English teachers teach politics and have sex with the female students, getting a fair number of them pregnant, which results in expulsions and several fair skinned babies found dumped in different places around the city.

John Eppel sets the scene for New Year’s Eve parties in the city of Bulawayo, by providing imaginative and hilarious descriptions of the idiosyncrasies of each of his characters. Each character, community, race and class brings a different but colourful dimension and meaning to the terms corruption, greed, slovenliness, debauchery and selfishness, which renders the story of the parties on New Year ’s Eve in the various locations uproarious. Despite the dead babies that are a constantly being discovered throughout this story, Eppel succeeds in delivering a story about a city whose inhabitants have lost the qualities of Ubunthu: those qualities which form the fabric of strong communities in which the individuals care about the wellbeing of the others, demonstrated in simple acts such as preserving water during a drought, in order that there may be enough for everyone. This delivery is neither moralistic nor judgemental, but it is brutally honest, stripping individuals literally to their bare bottoms and institutions to reveal their rotten innards, all accomplished with humour, great skill and unparalleled precision.

The story lifts the reader out of the filth and one is deposited at a light, hope inspiring end. Young Elizabeth Fawkes’ love for the ruthlessly handsome, devil- may- care Jet Bunion is finally reciprocated, and the egg she has been incubating for her father in her bra is hatching. Fresh beginnings and a new day are possible after all.

Conversations with Writers: Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende

2011-10-27T10:38:00.003+02:00

Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende was born in Zimbabwe. She worked in Germany for a number of years before moving to Scotland where she was a student at the University of Glasgow. Currently, she lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
One of her short stories has been featured in Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe (amaBooks, 2011).

In this interview, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende talks about her concerns as a writer:

Do you write every day?

No. I do not write every day. That is in part due to time constraints but also because I spend a lot of time reading or creating stories in my head so that when I do sit down to write, I write as opposed to thinking.
I am putting together a short story collection and working on a novel.
I create stories while I am chopping vegetables or folding laundry. Then when I have half an hour to sit at my computer, it is to put down something. The writing usually ends because I have something to attend to, like the pot of burning stew!
Often times I have a notebook close by to jot ideas down as I go about my daily activities, including grocery shopping.

What are the biggest challenges that you face?

So far the biggest challenge I face is juggling family life and finding the time to write. My daughters are 10, 8 and 5 (twins) and they require a lot of energy and attention, which leaves very little time for much else.
I have learnt to be extremely efficient in my use of the little time that I do have.

When did you start writing?

I started writing and enjoying it when I was in Grade 7. I was about 12 years old.
Over the years I have written creatively and, also, as a scientist. Currently, I write literary fiction. Short stories mainly.
When I started writing seriously last year, I was doing it mainly for my friends who I went to school with and those who knew me growing up. Over the years many of them have suggested that I write and so I started a blog purely to share stories with friends and family. My friend, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, who I have known for 10 years, read some of my pieces and hooked me up with a couple of editors of literary journals and the journey began.
My most significant achievement as a writer has been to turn a personal passion into something to be shared as a way to entertain and perhaps to enrich others. This, above all else, gives me the greatest satisfaction.
My only hope is that whoever gets to read my stories enjoys them as much as I enjoy writing them. My hope is also that my stories appeal to those who are familiar with the environment and the experiences that inspire the stories as well as to those who enjoy a good, well-written story no matter what the story's context or background.

How have your personal experiences influenced your writing?

My personal experiences have an impact on my writing in many ways. I recognize that my prose style borrows heavily on the oral, story-telling tradition that was very much a part of my childhood. My experiences living in the village provide a rich context for many of my stories.
My extensive travels and living in different countries has shaped many of my views and beliefs and this comes through in some of the characters I create, as does personal loss and challenges that I have had to face.
Being a wife and a mother also feed my writing tremendously.

Which authors influenced you most?

I draw inspiration from many writers from different backgrounds and eras. The ones that come to mind, because I read them over and over again, are: George Orwell, for his crisp uncluttered style; Milan Kundera, for his audacious and oftentimes crazy characters; Toni Morrison, for her uncanny ability to revisit the same subject matter and present it in unique ways through compelling characters and use of language; Chinua Achebe, for telling a story that would have an indelible impact on my young psyche as an African teenager in a predominantly white school; Tsitsi Dangarembga, for weaving an amazing tapestry in which I could locate myself as a Zimbabwean woman, in her book, Nervous Conditions.
There are so many more writers who have influenced my work and my desire to write and share my stories: Chris Mlalazi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Charles Mungoshi, John Eppel, Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka, Ama Ata Aidoo, Yvonne Vera and so on and so forth.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

My one major concern is the fact that there seems to be an expectation that as a writer who is Zimbabwean and therefore African, I cannot create art for art’s or write for writing’s sake. There seems to be this expectation that as a writer I have the responsibility of being a good ambassador for country and for continent.
What concerns me is the definition of good ambassador. Who is articulating it and the parameters that are used to define the 'good ambassador'? I live in angst over the fact that I may be accused of pandering to the west by presenting an Africa that fuels their hunger for sad stories of war, boy soldiers, famine, poverty and corruption. It seems that this is quite an issue based on the criticisms that have been leveled against contemporary writers whose work I identify with.

I think, for me, the best way to deal with this issue is to simply write what I like and to tell stories that help me make sense of my own world. Anything less than this, writing ceases to be the joyful passion through which I can be fully myself.

I also accept that inherent in the decision to get published is the risk of uncomfortable scrutiny and criticism. Not everyone will like what I write ... that is totally fine.

http://conversationswithwriters.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-barbara-mhangami-ruwende.html

Where to Now? reviewed on www.mazwi.com

2011-10-26T11:02:00.003+02:00

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe was launched by ‘amaBooks at the National Gallery on 24th September 2011 in conjunction with the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo. It will also be published by Parthian Books in UK in 2012. Editor Jane Morris and ‘amaBooks of Bulawayo began publishing anthologies of Zimbabwe-themed short writings in the early 2000s. The current volume follows the success of Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe (2008), where thirty-three writers chronicle ‘the lost decade’ of political crisis, forced removals, mass migration, joblessness, starvation, hyperinflation, AIDS, cholera and other hardships. Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe is a slimmer volume with half as many pieces. The photograph of a stone sculpture by Arlington Muzondo graces the book cover; and its roaming cracks suggest a myriad of tentative and uncertain routes – as if in answer to the question posed. In this transition period – where national crisis continues in slow motion – Zimbabwe’s writers clearly grapple for a new sense of direction. Jane Morris said submissions slowed considerably from 2009. Even so, there are some excellent pieces. Fifteen of the sixteen short stories catch the socio-political impasse and tell of its far-reaching effects. The exception is Bryony Rheam’s The Piano Tuner, a Zambian story with a distinctly different mood. Though Rheam is a displaced Zimbabwean herself, the setting for her story is a hot and dry Ndola, where Thomas Jenkins Piano Tuners is now fronted by Mr Leonard Mwale who delights his client, a shy woman of Indian heritage, with a light piece of Beethoven. The characters literally connect on a positive note. But this stands in contrast to the other stories overshadowed by Zimbabwe’s fraught politics, which they cannot seem to transcend. Mzana Mthimkhulu’s I am an African, am I? is exemplary. Accused by an anti-Western colleague of betraying African identity, a troubled company manager finds affirmation and gratitude for delivering mealie-meal to his needy rural relatives, but this will not ultimately resolve the deeper existential dilemma. Five stories address political violence and dispossession, and are noticeably downbeat. Raisedon Baya’s Her Skin is a Map details police brutality during a teachers’ protest in Bulawayo. In The Accidental Hero, Murenga Joseph Chikowero tells the fate of young ‘Comrade Advance’ who distributes free eggs to the Party faithful during food shortages and gets a groundswell of support. But as crowds surge he falls to his death from a ladder; and absurdly becomes a martyr of the anti-colonial struggle – a ‘HERO OF THE PIOPLE’ [sic]. Christopher Mlalazi’s They are Coming is a snapshot of troubled township life before an election, when the Green Bombers (Zimbabwe’s Youth Brigade) rampage though a community, splitting a family and leaving a path of destruction. In Nyevero Muza’s The Poetry Slammer, a ‘closet writer’ creates an alter-ego poet named X, who leads a crowd of protesters against tyranny, but takes a bullet in his chest. X becomes a martyr, identified by his blood-stained poem of resistance. But the closet writer’s own creative/populist aspirations fall flat. Tomato Stakes, by John Eppel, exposes Zimbabwe’s land grab and its human cost. War veterans, youths, and the Deputy Director of Youth Brigades drive a desperate white farmer to hang himself. Also his Malawian foreman is murdered and left with the word BLANTYRE carved into his chest to mark him, like his white boss, as one who does not belong on Zimbabwean land. The white farmer’s surviving family find refuge in New Zealand, which ends their 350-year history on the African continent. Political violence, dispossession, and forced relocation still weigh heavily on the national consciousness, as the above five stories show. On the theme of exile there are four thought-provoking pieces. In Crossroads, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma tells about starting a new life in South Africa – the hard choices and shattered dreams. She excellently catches the nervous anticipation, lonely struggle, self-sacrifice, unwanted dependence on relatives and bloody-minded determination that has characterised so many journeys across the Limpopo. If disillusionment is the dawning reality in Crossroads, fear of xenophobic violence is the theme in Sandisile Tshuma’s The Need. Visualizing an illegal immigrant set ablaze in a Johannesburg slum not long after the Football World Cup, the narrator fears ‘the collective brain that told you that foreign is bad, that foreign steals jobs, that your brother is your enemy and that ‘they’ all deserve to die.’ The Need explores the psychology of xenophobia, how friends can suddenly become murderous enemies, how it feels to be cast as an outsider in the so-called ‘Rainbow Nation’. In Sudden Death by Blessing Musariri, we meet two enterprising Zimbabweans working as carers for the elderly in the UK. Agnes is not really Agnes at all: that is her fake ID. Simba, her partner, also poses as someone else to get through UK Immigration. After months of hard work, they believe they have finally sent enough money to Zimbabwe to build a house – but betrayal by a thieving relative wrecks their dream. Trans-continental tragedy also figures in Diana Charsley’s Mr Pothole, which focusses on a hit and run victim with dementia, found face-down in a pothole. His Bulawayo funeral is attended by his next of kin, who abandoned him for a life in London. The exile-themed stories express sadness and expose the huge social and psychological cost of Zimbabwe’s mass exodus. Moving to gender, several stories challenge female subordination. Mapfumo Clement Chihota tells of emasculation versus female empowerment in A Beast and a Jete. A jete is ‘A woman who kicks her husband’s bum around … who defeats her husband mentally and outwits him at every turn.’ In this case Vanyemba cuckolds her husband with one of the villagers but is acquitted of adultery through lack of evidence, by the village headman, to the great amusement of all. She is also paid damages for what is judged a false accusation. Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende continues the theme of female assertiveness in Christina the Colourful. Here Kudu, the young narrator, greatly admires her transgressive aunt, criticised for ‘jumping from town to town’ and disgracing her extended family. Cornered into an arranged marriage, Christina nevertheless outwits her forceful patriarchal matchmakers, becoming a strong role model for her young niece in a bitter-sweet resolution, which necessitates their separation. A child narrator also tells Thabisani Ndlovu’s story Making a Woman, which exposes appalling patriarchal violence, conducted casually within a small rural community. The young boy’s Aunt Mongi is beautiful but deaf, unmarried and childless. Grandpa, aggrieved for having a disabled daughter, decides to ‘make her a woman’ which means organising her rape and impregnation by a chosen suitor. But Aunt Mongi defiantly chooses abortion. Abortion also figures in NoViolet Bulawayo’s Snapshots. (She won the 2011 Caine Prize for Hitting Budapest). Previously published in 2009 in New Writing from Africa, this is the sad story of a young girl who does not stand a chance against cruel patriarchal customs that drive her onto the street after the death of her father, away from a mother who is compelled to disown her, into the arms of a sexual predator when she has nowhere else to turn, and finally to a back-street abortionist, who seals her fate with a jabbing coat-hanger. Though the piece is exceptionally well-written, it is depressing to think a young girl’s fate can be so thoroughly determined by circumstances over which she has no control. By contrast the other female characters in this collection, Vanyemba, Christina, and even Aunt Mongi, are not stifled or snuffed out by patriarchal forces. Alone, by Fungai Rufaro Machirori, also examines strength and resilience in the reflections of a single woman moving into middle-age without needing a man in her life. While all of the content in this collection is engaging, my one criticism is that the quality is uneven. The short story is possibly the most difficult prose form to master; and it is apparent that some writers are more attendant to issues of structure and style than others. Some pieces are more sketches than short stories. On the other hand, the inclusion of writing that is somewhat rough around the edges, in juxtaposition to that of a more polished quality, lends the collection an authentic appeal. This is a rewarding read for anyone following the Zimbabwe story, for anyone concerned about Zimbabweans and their collective destiny.

Reviewed by Drew Shaw

Murenga Joseph Chikowero interviewed on Conversations with Writers

2011-10-12T09:17:00.004+02:00

Zimbabwean writer, Murenga Joseph Chikowero is a doctoral student in African Literature and Film at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In 2010, he collaborated with Annie Holmes and Peter Orner on an oral history project which gave birth to the highly-regarded book, Hope Deferred (McSweeney’s Publishing, 2010).

His short stories have featured in the anthology, Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe (amaBooks, 2011) as well as on the PanAfrican writers’ blog, StoryTime.

In this interview, Murenga Chikowero talks about his concerns as a writer:

When did you start writing?

Back in primary school, probably in 6th grade.

That year, I moved to a different part of the country, near Guruve in the north, and there a friend told me a story, one of those fantastic tales. When I went back to my old school a year later, our teacher asked everyone to write a story, any fictional story. I wrote down this story about a mythical, one-eyed giant but ... when our books were returned ... mine wasn’t there! Our teacher had misplaced it. When she eventually found it, she asked everybody to stop whatever they were doing to listen to my story.

That, for me, was when writing stories down began although storytelling itself was nothing new in my family and, indeed, other families in the villages.

How would you describe your writing?

I write mainly short stories though I have a novel on the way.

I am fascinated by the 1980s, the time when so many people felt they could dream ... independence was finally here and, for that reason, young men walked with a pronounced swagger, shirts unbuttoned down to the navel and hats worn at fancy angles. Young women wore their over-ironed pleated costumes, stretched out their graceful necks and went about their business. My writing traces the radical and more subtle changes from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe and what ‘Zimbabwe’ meant to different generations and groups. The clamor of the post-2000 politics masks the amazing beauty – and. yes, largely untold trauma – of the 80s and I try to recapture that in my fiction.

Outside fictional writing, I recently collaborated with two writers, Annie Holmes and Peter Orner on an oral history project that gave birth to a book called Hope Deferred. That project basically attempts to bring voices of ordinary Zimbabweans – at home and abroad – to bear on the narrative of Zimbabwean crisis of the last decade. I traveled to Zimbabwe and interviewed some of these witnesses and victims of torture and political persecution.

Hope Deferred is a collection of some of the most remarkable personal stories of ordinary people’s experiences of state-sponsored terrorism, their struggles for a better society and, ultimately, the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

My short fiction generally targets a mature audience but my novel-in-progress courts younger Zimbabweans although all English speakers will find something to enjoy there too. A lot of our young people today have no clue what the 80s and 90s meant – or promised – to those who lived through them. The beauty and ugliness of that period is unlike anything we have seen since.

In the writing you are doing, which authors influenced you most?

Because my school didn’t have a library, I read whatever I found.

The adolescent detective genre was quite an obsession early on, especially the American variety: the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series. Nothing was better than lying on my back before the yellow light of a paraffin lamp after supper and join Frank and Joe Hardy and their friends – and sometimes their father Fenton – as they put together the puzzle pieces of some big crime in their town.

Then, after reading No Longer at Ease, I considered myself a firm disciple of Chinua Achebe. No book made me happier even with its subtle, controlled prose. Achebe’s fiction, though written in English, read like my native Shona and I liked that instant recognition.

I bumped onto a battered copy of House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera in between reading the then ubiquitous Pacesetter series that we exchanged in middle school and I was instantly hooked. The problem, though, was that the copy was so battered it had no cover so there was no way of knowing its title or author.

But the Pacesetters series! My very first Pacesetter was called Evbu My Love by a Nigerian writer named Helen Obviagele. It was a somewhat sad story but there was something about love brewed in the African pot that nibbled gently at your heart and made you read the story once, then twice.

The Pacesetter Series was impressive for its vivid language and fast-paced action by African heroes and, occasionally, heroines. Secret service heroes like Benny Kamba in Equatorial Assignment. Some of the heroes had English names such as Jack Ebony in Mark of the Cobra but that didn’t bother us and we were right there with him as he delivered deadly karate kicks to venomous snakes hidden in his wardrobe by enemies of the state.

I also read some South African fiction, most of which I didn’t particularly like at the time, perhaps because the first ever South African novel I read was Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country. The Pacesetters had introduced me to African heroes who could punch their way out of trouble so I found Cry, the Beloved Country particularly depressing.

Luckily, Dambudzo Marechera saved me around this time. A friend let me borrow his House of Hunger though we didn’t find out what the title was until much later. Unlike anything I had read before, Marechera seized me by the scruff of my neck and thrust me into a violent yet fascinating world of the ghetto slum. I had not stayed in any urban ghetto so the world of House of Hunger shocked me. Another happy problem was the language; I didn’t understand a lot of the more flowery prose but it excited and shocked me in equal measure. A less happy problem was that Marechera, of course, didn’t see anything wrong with describing graphic sexual acts, sometimes even in our native language and so I got a bigger book, a schoolbook actually, planted House of Hunger right in the middle and read and re-read the numbing details of ghetto life while my teachers marveled at my keen academic interest!

Around the same time, we discovered James Hadley-Chase, Louis L’Amour and the British classics – usually the abridged versions.

My older brothers also read anything under the sun and kept personal libraries of sorts. I was allowed to read these books – as long as I was behaving myself. I liked history books the most because they were packed with biographies of larger than life characters, characters who rose from nobodies and turned the world upside down. I liked all of those legendary figures. Our government was then heavy on what is called Gutsaruzhinji or Socialism and there were all these history books detailing the Chinese Revolution of 1947. I would look at a certain picture of a youthful Mao Zedong – then called Mao Tse Tung – and envy his army cap.

My brothers also had collections of Shona language novels, some of which were course setbooks at school. I detested the moralistic variety churned by the sackful by our Literature Bureau but absolutely loved the detective thrillers like James Kawara’s Sajeni Chimedza and Edward Kaugare‘s Kukurukura Hunge Wapotswa. Though targeted at older readers, these novels were not too different from the Pacesetter Series. Above all, I loved the Shona language liberation war novels, the best of which was Kuda Muhondo by a writer whose name I forget. The more overtly partisan ones like Zvairwadza Vasara, I didn’t particularly like.

These books and experiences shaped my early writing and made me feel I could try my hand too.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

Each time I sit down to write down a story, I am always struck by James Baldwin’s assertion that the job of the writer is to look for the question that the answer tries to hide. And yet we often think of the answer itself as a solution to a query.

The ease with which myth passes off as truth in Zimbabwe motivates me to write fiction. My major concern is the place of historical memory in contemporary Zimbabwe. A lot has happened and we have a state that considers it a moral obligation to control this narrative, especially since the year 2000, thanks to a severely – and perhaps deliberately – stunted media landscape. I use different generational voices to interrogate these changes that have happened.

For example, one of the biggest myths in our country is that all Zimbabweans lived happy, comfortable lives before the Mugabe-led farm takeovers which began in earnest around 2000. Few people are honest enough to remember that the ruling elites, led by Mugabe himself, actually colluded with the rich white farmers and industrialists to lord it over an impoverished population.

Who remembers now that the farm takeovers were actually planned and spearheaded by ordinary villagers? Who remembers that these villagers were actually arrested for their efforts before political expediency made it necessary for our politicians to turn round and celebrate these villagers as heroes of the Third Chimurenga? I try to write beautiful stories that bring a more nuanced understanding to these issues.

What are the biggest challenges that you face?

The biggest challenge facing most Zimbabwean writers today is the shrinking publishing industry. This, of course is true throughout Africa with South Africa as a possible exception.

The few, mostly independent publishing houses left in Zimbabwe are forced to put their few resources behind book projects by trusted names so as to recoup their investments. Yes, ours is still a society that views fictional writing as something of an indulgence, a hobby for the educated class. Of course, there is that basic question: Who is going to buy a book when all the money they have can hardly buy a loaf of bread?

You will notice that, contrary to the 20 years leading up to 2000, there are fewer fresh writers whose works are published individually. The tendency has been to produce these anthologies from which some talented voices occasionally emerge, for example, both Brian Chikwava and Petinah Gappah published short stories as part of this short story anthology tradition before launching individual careers as celebrated writers. To date, I have also pursued a somewhat similar path although some of my stories have been published in the form of e-books in South Africa.

Do you write everyday?

Because I balance an academic career with writing fiction, I cannot write everyday. It is also not my style to write everyday. I generally let a story or a chapter ferment in my imagination for days, rather like chikokiyana, our traditional brew, before writing it down. But when I start writing, the story demands that I finish it in one sitting, much like a gourd of frothy chikokiyana. Then I pass it on to my partner to read. She is by far my harshest critic so I usually listen to her opinion before editing my stories.

Ever since I discovered Dambudzo Marechera, Toni Morrison, Njabulo Ndebele, V. S. Naipaul, Charles Mungoshi, Joseph Heller and Ernest Hemingway, I have never liked a story whose conclusion is overwritten, especially if it’s a short story.

My short stories in particular use plenty of silences which estimate real-life African dialogue as I have experienced it.

I have a special dislike for stories that end in formulaic ways ... for example, a relationship that ends with a wedding or a rogue who is caught and jailed. I like my rogues out there, maybe some of them reform or they are chased out of town but I like them better out there and not in jail. Instead of a wedding, I am usually satisfied with lovers looking into each other’s eyes or even doing seemingly small things for each other.

My most recently published short stories include “The Hero”, which was featured in an anthology called Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe by amaBooks, a Bulawayo-based publisher. I have also published two stories, “When the King of Sungura Died” and “Uncle Jeffrey” on the PanAfrican writers' blog, StoryTime, which is managed and edited by Zimbabwean-born writer, Ivor Hartmann.

How would you describe "The Hero"?

“The Hero” is about an accidental hero who starts off as a rather banal political party thug who falls into a large beer container at a party rally and dies. His party declares him a hero and on the day of burial, he even dislodges the president from the news headlines. "The Hero" is based on a true story that happened in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, around 2003.

I wrote it in one sitting, as I usually do with my short stories, and it was published in Where to Now? by Bulawayo-based amaBooks in 2011. My story speaks to other stories in that anthology, all by fellow Zimbabweans. In my story, for example, the ill-fated character is essentially a victim of an economy gone haywire; he takes to partisan politics like one possessed. In NoViolet Bulawayo’s award-winning story in the same volume, “Hitting Budapest”, you find a similar theme of ghetto kids craving for very basic necessities of life which their parents cannot provide, thanks to a crashed economy.

The ghetto setting is something I am very familiar with. I think a story’s power also draws from its ability to evoke a setting that readers recognize.

Which aspects of the work did you enjoy most?

Creating the ghetto scene and the atmosphere of a Zimbabwean political rally are the two things that I enjoyed most. Political rallies in Zimbabwe have a whole life of their own.

I also especially liked working with Jane Morris, the editor of Where to Now?.

What sets "The Hero" apart from other things you’ve written?

The satire ... Some of the so-called heroes and heroines buried at our publicly-funded heroes’ burial sites – heroes’ acres as we call them, including the National Heroes Acre, are no heroes at all ... But because of media censorship, there is little public debate about these kinds of issues outside the columns of the few privately-owned newspapers ... Thankfully, developments in Information Communication Technology have seen a steady rise in online newspapers, blogs and online social forums where a culture of robust debate is slowly taking root.

What “The Hero” shares with my other stories is the fascination with Zimbabwe’s public memory, particularly how it has been edited, suppressed and manipulated at various times to suit the goals of the political class.

Where to Now? reviewed in Newsday

2011-10-11T17:21:00.002+02:00

Where to Now? — Short Stories from Zimbabwe
REVIEWED BY CYNTHIA R MATONHODZE - Oct 11 2011 06:43
Editor: Jane Morris
Publisher: ‘amaBooks, Bulawayo, 2011, 146pp

The anthology Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe features a mixture of 16 Zimbabwean writers, some new and others well known, among them 2011 Caine Prize winner NoViolet Bulawayo and 2011 World Summit Youth Awards runner-up Fungai Rufaro Machirori.
Published by ‘amaBooks, it is the fifth book in a series of short story writings the first being Short Writings from Bulawayo (2003)* and the most recent one Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe (2008).
Where to Now? casts autobiographical tales of life and living in Zimbabwe’s lost decade when the economy crumbled, inflation reached dizzy heights, violence replaced the rule of law and most people fled the country.
What is autobiographical about these stories is different Zimbabwean authors delivering narratives that speak of events, phases, characters and images that are conspicuously Zimbabwean, creating a lingering reflection which prompts the reader to ask: Where to now? From the black purchasing manager who struggles with whether or not he is a true African — when a fellow colleague accuses him of being a sell-out for eating isitshwala with a fork and knife and only using the company fuel allocation he needs in Mzana Mthimkhulu’s I am an African, am I? to the couple that goes to the UK, each assuming another identity, to work and send money home to build their dream house only to be swindled by a relative who had been sending them pictures of someone else’s house in Blessing Musariri’s Sudden Death — each story tickles the memory to recall that period and sometimes even crafts out a memory that will have you sad, in stitches, inspired, disillusioned or even questioning yourself.
For example, Raisedon Baya’s Her Skin is a Map and Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s Crossroads, both writers tell the story of migrating to South Africa. One traces the events that lead most to leave while the other sketches out the tedious humiliating process many Zimbabweans went through for the promise of a better life, only to have that hope shattered by reality. Etched in these tales are themes such as violence, corruption, family disintegration, desperation, hope and disillusionment. Baya uses nature and the park to lament and trace the deterioration of human relationships in society, in Zimbabwe.
“The park has changed. The grass is no longer entwined together like lovers. The grass is gone, replaced by an angry gold that attacks the eyes. The trees look unhappy, betrayed. If they could walk they would have left the park a long time ago.” (p56). Now, “The people that come to the park now are not lovers with spirits, they are not families that want a day out, but unemployed people who are hungry and tired of hunting for jobs and are here to rest and hide from prying eyes,” (p58).
Baya remembers happier times where as a little boy they would have a picnic in the park at Christmas with his family, everything joyous with the promise of independence. Now when he takes his own family to the park they end up being badly beaten up by riot police who suspect that they are striking teachers. Then and there he makes up his mind to leave with his family for Durban.
Tshuma creates a vivid image of the process of migrating in a young woman’s journey from Zimbabwe to South Africa in the hope of getting a job and saving up enough money for university. In Zimbabwe – no water, no electricity (depending on where you stay), a never-ending queue at the South African Embassy with enterprising individuals that sell their positions in the queue.
At the border — never ending queues, rude and indifferent immigration officers, stories of having been robbed in South Africa and the public toilets that read:

Toilet paper only
To be used in this toilet
No cardboard
No cloth
No Zim dollars
No newspaper p (69)

Baya and Tshuma clearly and skillfully capture memories of that sad period in Zimbabwe’s history, painfully personal for most. There are some lighter stories like Mapfumo Clement Chihota’s A Beast and a Jete which is a story within stories of clever women that out smart their husbands.
Other stories include themes such as xenophobia, poverty, marriage, lost hope, infidelity, love, misplaced hate, the new generation of women, a dishevelled society, loneliness, the pain of remembering, death, coming home, the born-frees, political machinations, life in limbo and black and white relations.
Other contributors include Barbara Mhangani-Ruwende, Thabisani Ndlovu, Bryony Rheam, Nyevero Muza, Christopher Mlalazi, Diana Charsley, Murenga Joseph Chikowero, John Eppel and Sandisile Tshuma.

Owen Maseko, from NoViolet blogs

2011-10-08T22:37:00.003+02:00

Zim visual and installation artist, Owen Maseko, makes a visual interpretation of a scene from NoViolet Bulawayo's "Snapshots" at the Byo launch of "Where to Now?" by amabooks on 09-24-2011. Maseko is of course one of our most renowned artists, but he has also been persecuted by the Zimbabwean government for his Gukurahundi exhibition, a reminder that as Zim artists, we are not free. Below is a poem I wrote during his incarceration in 2010.

----------

they say Owen Maseko
be causing trouble—like,
undermining the authority
of the president, like
brushes and colors in hand,
he be painting truth, making truth, like,
shedding dark blood, digging old skulls
unburying the murdered, imagine that,
like giving them bright-red voices,
after all these years - almost 30 solid,
saying their names, hanging the dead
on a clothesline for all to see,
like nobody didn’t teach him - didn't tell him
Zim is a land of silent silence,
where they edit expression on final cut pro
with police whips and guns and prisons
people living hand to mouth,
famished for rights, for freedom,
for the sound of their own true voices
see us walk like zombies in Zim, like
paralyzed by fear of the state in Zim
we could flee our shadows in Zim,
we see nothing, we hear nothing in Zim
let them silence us, beat us in Zim, like
what does freedom matter in Zim?, like
we have Owen Maseko to show, right
now here’s staring at a blank cell
reading the writing on the wall
scribbled in blood, left hand too,
“Jestina Mukoko was here” like
we have Gukurahundi to show
we have murambatsvina to show
we have persecuted whites to show
we have the 2008 election to show
but you can’t ask us nothing coz
we won’t say nothing, but like,
in our dreams though, we roar with rage,
wave bloodied shirts in the wind,
wave Gukurahundi skulls and femurs,
we knock down prisons, like, we throw
rocks at police, we gut jails, like,
we protest until they free Owen Maseko,
in our dreams we are almost brave, and
the president is an old man who fears our power. © NVB

Where to Now? reviewed on www.examiner.com

2011-10-08T22:29:00.001+02:00

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe
Edited by: Jane Morris
Reviewed by Rosetta Codling
European Literary Scene Examiner, www.examiner.com
October 6, 2011

Synopsis: This work is a collection of complex, human dramas focusing upon the realities of Zimbabwean and African life. The writer Mzana Mthimkhulu contributes to this collection an intriguing question and excerpt entitled I am an Africa, am I? This African-Cartesian question is not easily answered in this short story. Mark, a colleague of Timothy, the protagonist, raises this question to his friend. Mark’s query resonates throughout the selection. Timothy is a successful man. He adheres to the guidelines in his Western workplace. In doing so, is he betraying something? Tradition vs. Modernity is the conflict…here…and always in Africa.
Blessing Musariri’s contribution entitled Sudden Death is a ‘brief’ about trust and kinship. The hopes and dreams of several women in the story become entwined upon a literal ‘cross’ borne by one man. Was it wrong to place such a burden of trust upon a person? Was it foolish not to assume that repercussions would occur?
The selection The Piano Tuner, by Bryony Rheam, stirs the reader’s imagination. The main character, Leonard Mwale, is a Zambian piano tuner by trade. He goes to luxurious homes and tunes things into shape. Many patrons send a car for him and offer him a free meal in addition to his fee. For, Leonard Mwale is a skillful man. Tragic are the many ailments in the household that he services in this selection.
In summary, there are no ‘nicely constructed’ plots or storylines in this collection. However, the readings will challenge your imagination and your concept of ‘self.’

Critique: This is the best collection of short stories from Jane Morris so far! I did enjoy the stories and the complex plots. The African literary tradition is illustrated and represented well by these writers and stories. This is a collection for every lover of African literature. Educators and sociologists take note and get a copy!

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe launched in Bulawayo

2011-09-29T16:46:00.003+02:00

The Zimbabwe launch of 'amaBooks’ new title Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe took place on Saturday September 24 as part of the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo.
The collection, the fifth in the Short Writings series, features sixteen Zimbabwe writers – Raisedon Baya, NoViolet Bulawayo, Diana Charsley, Clement Chihota, Joseph Chikowero, John Eppel, Fungai Machirori, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende, Christopher Mlalazi, Mzana Mthimkhulu, Blessing Musariri, Nyevero Muza, Thabisani Ndlovu, Bryony Rheam, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Sandisile Tshuma.
As well as readings from the book by John Eppel and Christopher Mlalazi, the artist Owen Maseko did a ‘live’ sketch as an excerpt from NoViolet Bulawayo’s story Snapshots was read.

More photographs taken during the launch can be seen on the 'amaBooks Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.174435625968972.44269.127285080684027

Conversations with Writers: Omen Nyevero Muza

2011-09-29T16:01:00.003+02:00

From: http://conversationswithwriters.blogspot.com/2011/09/interview-omen-muza.html

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

[Interview] Omen Muza

Omen Nyevero Muza holds an MBA and runs a financial advisory firm he co-founded in Harare.

He is also a financial columnist with a local daily newspaper.

One of his short stories appears in the anthology, Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe (amaBooks, 2011).

He writes and plays guitar in his spare time.

In this interview, Omen Muza talks about his concerns as a writer:

When did you start writing?

My first serious attempt at writing was while waiting for my O-Level results. I cobbled together a collection of poems which was, however, never published.

Before that, I recall that my Grade 7 teacher put my name to something I didn’t write and submitted it to some obscure publication. Perhaps as some form of poetic justice, the publication misspelt my name to something entirely unrecognizable so in the end it was never attributed to me anyway. I am sure my beloved teacher meant well and obviously had a soft spot for me but I wonder whether she was aware that she was making me an accessory to an act of plagiarism. I certainly wasn’t aware!

How would you describe your writing?

Intermittent and undisciplined.

Although I have attempted a novel before, I now tend to focus only on short stories because they are less demanding, time-wise. The rigour of full-time work and contributing a weekly newspaper column on banking and finance does not leave room for much else, apparently.

I have never consciously thought about who my audience is or should be. I just write, really. Sometimes your audience can come from the most unlikely quarters so it may not be wise to have pre-conceived notions about who constitutes it.

In the writing you are doing, which authors influenced you most?

My pool of influence is quite an eclectic mix. However, if I have to name one person I consciously sought to emulate during my formative years, it would have to be none other than Dambudzo Marechera. With the benefit of hindsight, I was trying to emulate his lifestyle, not his writing style.

And have your own personal experiences influenced your writing in any way?

I would say extensively.

Most of my creative work is based on my personal experiences, sometimes to the point of being crudely autobiographical, I must say.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

To write in a manner that is believable... to be authentic... to write in a manner that people can relate to.

Perhaps this explains why I only write fiction when I have to. I no longer write for the sake of writing.

Like Nhamo, the character in "The Poetry Slammer", from the collection Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe, my biggest challenge is the balancing act between finding time to write while working full-time in the financial services sector. It’s never an easy road.

Do you write every day?

I don’t write every day but I read every day. And when I write it is never structured - there is no formula. I let the chips fall where they may. At any given time, I usually have several incomplete stories that I am working on.

I haven’t published a full book yet but I have published a number of stories in various online and print media.

My latest short story, "The Poetry Slammer" was published in early August as part of amaBooks' latest collection of short stories, Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe. I cannot remember how long it took me to write the story but because I wrote it for submission to a literary competition, the story can’t have taken much time to write.

An earlier short story of mine had been one of the top ten stories in the Intwasa Short Story Writing competition in 2007 organized by amaBooks in Bulawayo, so amaBooks was the natural destination for "The Poetry Slammer".

Though largely fictional, "The Poetry Slammer" draws significantly from real events and places. Under those circumstances, the challenge was to be faithful to the zeitgeist – the true spirit of those events and places because some people who went through the experiences on which the short story is based may read the story one day. I had to do quite a bit research in order to deal with that concern. For instance, when I was writing the short story, I actually visited the Book Café for the House of Hunger Poetry Slam in order to get into the right groove, and I remember chatting to Chirikure Chirikure one night in the Mannenberg Jazz Café.

I enjoyed writing every bit of "The Poetry Slammer", not only parts of it. I wanted it to be different from anything I had written before in terms of style, plot and characterization.

What will you be working on next?

Interestingly, or maybe strangely, it will not even be a work of fiction. It will be a collection of my NewsDay banking and finance articles written over a period of more than a year, tentatively titled Banking Insights from an Economy in Transition.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

Not giving up on writing... staying true to my craft in spite of the odds heavily staked against writing.

Conversations with Writers: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

2011-09-26T10:56:00.003+02:00

Conversations with Writers

[Interview] Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

http://conversationswithwriters.blogspot.com/2011/09/interview-novuyo-rosa-tshuma.html

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a Zimbabwean writer currently studying at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

In 2009, she won the Intwasa Short Story Competition.

Her short stories have been featured in anthologies that include The Bed Book of Short Stories (Modjaji Books, 2010); A Life In Full and Other Stories: Caine Prize Anthology 2010 (New Internationalist, 2010), African Roar: an Eclectic Anthology of African Authors (StoryTime, 2010) and Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe (amaBooks, 2011).

In this interview, Novuyo Tshuma talks about her concerns as a writer:

Which authors influenced you most?

The novels of Orhan Pamuk, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Arundhati Roy, Sembene Ousmane, Naguib Mahfouz, Tsitsi Dangarembga, James Baldwin.

A particular piece of short writing which comes to mind is Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s "Kin la Belle: In the clear light of Song and Silence" which was featured in the Pilgrimages Project and was about her pilgrimage to Kinsasha. I love descriptive writing, writing that engages one’s surroundings, and in this piece a stark, out-of-the-box creativity merges with the writer’s experiences to create an intensely sensual reading. Absolutely beautiful.

I read an online excerpt of Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning where landscape merges with the emotional state of the protagonist in an intense poetic prose that is just awesome.

Brian Chikwava’s "Seventh Street Alchemy" is a read filled with memorable scenes painted with linguistic prowess.

The short fiction is endless.

Why did these particular writers have this influence? For me, they each offered something new in their readings, something beautifully executed, something I had not previously encountered in my readings.

Arundhati Roy’s gymnastic linguistics in The God of Small Things showed what was possible with language in literature, how words could be bended, stretched, rearranged and created to form a rich literary mosaic. Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk offered intense characterization, as did Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions.

In Palace Walk I found myself in an intricate love-hate relationship with many of the characters, the father-figure who was the true depiction of chauvinism, his wife Amina who had an irritating blandness, and their son Yasin who embarked on the most mischievous escapades. I formed a complicated bond with these characters, irked often by their complexities, disappointed by their short comings, in love with their 'humanness'.

Nyasha in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions is a beautifully complex character with acute perceptions and an original flair.

Orhan Pamuk’s novels offer philosophical characters set in plots that give a great view of the complexities which have plagued Turkey at different points of its history; a lot of tugging between fundamentalism and secularism/westernization.

I became fascinated with Nigerian dishes after tasting them in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.

There is always something new, something refreshing offered in the memorable reads.

How have your personal experiences influenced your writing in any way?

Hmmm ... I have said before that I like to keep it 'purely fiction'. However, pieces of oneself, one’s experiences are invariably interweaved in one’s writings.

I like to explore characters who may be removed from my direct self, but perhaps whose bits of experiences here and there, are my own. Taking, for instance, my story "Crossroads" in the Where To Now anthology ... it is a fictionalized piece and yet the descriptions at the border are details of characters I have observed, conversations I have overheard and so forth.

It helps in a piece of work to be familiar with setting and to be able to capture the atmosphere of a place, its edge or its bluntness. So, for me, personal experiences function well for setting and atmosphere.

I like to experiment with characters who are not directly linked to me as a writer, characters who I may feel do not exhibit too much of myself. I do not like too much self-examination in a piece of fiction; one becomes self-conscious as a writer, and rather apprehensive of this idea of self-depiction.

People may, nevertheless, link a character to the writer. I have had people read a story and then come to me, agape, and say, "You really did that?!" The excitement lies in stepping into the shoes of a fictionalized character and capturing such a character as though it were you, which then becomes, on some level, a humanizing of the self.

What are your main concerns as a writer?

The biggest, I would say, is the apprehension about one’s writing, capturing a story as best you can. One is ever aware of how much one is yet to learn, how much one does not know. These apprehensions are most easily tackled by ever writing, ever reading, ever exploring.

The biggest challenge is finding a home for your work. One gets more rejections for one’s work than acceptances. Some publications don’t reply. So one needs a persevering spirit.

I remember when I first started sending out my work. I was very bold and persistent in my letters. Got many rejections. I always kept sending.

Another challenge is fighting inertia ... it is important to ever grow in your writing, especially as a young writer. It is crucial to step out of one’s comfort zone and experiment, in order to discover the things one may be able to do in and with one’s writing. Some experiments fail. But that is part of the learning process, isn’t it? To discover what works and what doesn’t. Writing is a constant state of patience.

Do you write everyday?

Not every single day. I would say four to five days a week for several weeks, and then reading takes over for the next week or two and so forth. Some days are busier than others.

The trick, I find, is to allocate writing its space in your life, and to ensure that others respect that space. I usually write early morning, as that is when I feel sharpest.

My sessions usually begin by reading the previous session’s work. This helps me get into the mode of my work. Some editing usually takes place during this time. After reading, one simply delves into the writing. Many times, particularly with first drafts, one feels that one is writing a lot of rubbish – it is as though one is feeling for a thread in the dark, searching for the vein of a story.

Many first drafts end in despair! I find I have many first drafts of different scenes, different stories, and usually the stories that I finish at a point in time are alterations from first drafts written a while ago, which when perused with a fresh eye, offer a gem or two worth pursuing. And so that is how it goes.

If it is during a morning where I have to attend lectures, then time constraints end my sessions. You find that when you have had a good writing session that must end before you want it to, the story stays in your mind, and you ponder sentences and scenes as you go through your day. When you feel you have a particularly good hunch, you are impatient to get back to your writing.

If it is on a day when I do not have lectures, my sessions can carry through the day, which then becomes an intermittent act of writing and revising, and a lot of editing. This is on a good day, when one has tapped into the vein of a story.

Usually such sessions end because one is tired, and feels satisfied with the work one has managed to do on that particular day. And success on any given day is not judged by quantity but by quality – writing is a constant state of patience (unless one is working with a deadline and needs to balance number of words and the quality of the wording.

Time constraints sometimes pull the writer out of a surreal state where all writing can take place forever! So one may write three thousand words, and only a thousand of that three may feature in the final story.

Some sessions end in despair, when one is struggling with a scene, a story, a character. Usually when this happens I just grab a book and read – it helps to calm the mind.

My sessions usually begin and end in solitary space. I deliberately live alone, as I find the space invaluable for the writing. Growing up, I always used to crave the idea of a space to write, as there was always a lot going on around, interruptions and the like. The act of writing is ultimately an act of solitude. So it is good to have a space where you can just wake up and begin writing, and not have to entertain disruptions.

When did you start writing?

I began writing stories for fun when I was nine, thereabouts.

Influences change. It was during the Echoes of Young Voices young people’s anthology project with British Council and amaBooks publishers in 2006 that I acquired an inclination towards what you would call 'African Writing' ... I was eighteen at the time.

How would you describe the writing you are doing?

Realist fiction.

Who is your target audience?

Everybody who loves to read ... but this statement itself carries preconceptions, whether even subconsciously, of what our generic readership is, based on the common culture many of us consume or are invariably exposed to, through technology and other mediums.

It is interesting how the idea of Western influence (through, say, its preconceptions) becomes the focal point around which a reaction is lodged, whether towards or against it. Is the idea of a target audience presupposed by the idea of a commercial concern?

It is interesting ... in certain reviews you hear reference to what we, the readers, think; how we may view this and this, and one wonders who this we is. In lumping a generic readership, the question is, who or what informs the tastes of this readership? From where do the influences stem? And what of the other readership, take the rural masses who may 'love to read' but who do not have the commercial viability? Who or what shapes whatever literature they have access to? The relationship between writer-reader can be a complex one.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

Hmmm ... Achievement ... That word. I am skeptical of it.

There have been wonderful isolated moments, which I would not call achievements: My first story ever to be published. The very act itself of being published. Working with publishers on a piece of work at an intimate level, such as Jane and Brian of amaBooks. Mixing with writers on a whole other 'political' level at the Caine Prize Workshop, and building friendships there. Learning from writers I greatly admired at the Farafina Workshop. Growing, from these workshops and these interactions, into a more solid writer. Interacting with writers online and meeting some great people I hope will be lifelong friends.

I guess the idea of achievement goes back to a question: What is it that one sets out to achieve as a writer? Hmmm ... Interesting question, that.

The more obvious ideas of achievement are just that, too obvious, and therefore immediately boring.

I do know one thing though, which is that probably, this achievement in writing and I, shall always play a cat and mouse game.

Why?

Because it always feels I have not captured what it is I would like to capture in this thing called writing because the element to be captured is ever evolving. There is always a better way to capture a story, a new story to be told, a new story idea to try. The more one reads, the more one meets with freshness, and the more one’s critical horizons are expanded.

I am a young writer, I really cannot speak of achievement, whatever this suspicious thing called achievement is, and whatever it should mean to a writer. There is much work to be done, much writing to do, so little that has been done. The focus is on the future, spurred on by past and present writings.

Long Time Coming Review, from www.examiner.com

2011-09-26T07:26:00.004+02:00

New African Writing: [A] Long Time Coming

Rosetta Codling, European Literary Scene Examiner

http://www.examiner.com/european-literary-scene-in-national/new-african-writing-a-long-time-coming-review

September 24, 2011

Title: Long Time Coming, 'amaBooks Publishers, 2009

Edited by: Jane Morris

Synopsis: Jane Morris assembles another collection of short stories from the best contemporary writers of Zimbabwe today entitled Long Time Coming. Julius Chingono, John Eppel, and Brian Chikwava are noted contributors to this work, but there are additional Zimbabwean writers that are equally talented too. Sandisile Tshuma’s selection Arrested Development serves as an introduction to all. This first-person narrative is an account of the trials of a young lady attempting to go from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ via the unreliable, temperamental transport system of Zimbabwe. Self described, our narrator rants: “I am not hard to spot in this crowd at the barely functioning filling station. I am the sore thumb of a twenty-something year old woman wearing high-end sunglasses and trendy jeans, carrying minimal luggage and standing in a statuesque pose…” And indeed our narrator is the typical, young, mobile, and affluent one seeking a better route and a better trip out of Africa. The banter and the despair of Zimbabweans resonate well in this short ‘snapshot’ of their lives.

The writer Mathew Chokuwenga creates an expose on life that reads like an African version of Henry James’ Washington Square. This is a complicated, many tiered story about complicated people and complicated lives. The title of the work is Lanigan Avenue. The residents of Lanigan Street and Washington Square share many secrets, intrigues and little love.

One of John Eppel’s contributions to the collection is entitled The Awards Ceremony. Eppel’s selection pairs well with the poem My Country by his (deceased) comrade Julius Chingono. The medium of satire is often illustrated in John Eppel’s writings. The Awards Ceremony is a short creation of the author that satires a farce within the hypocrisy of a government award ceremony. There is some dark humor in this one. A reader will find overt humor supplied by the ample wife of the Minister too. The poem of Julius Chingono pairs so well with The Awards Ceremony because it focuses upon the same theme. My Country is a cry from Julius Chingono. He bemoans the reality of his cosmetically attractive... but barren... homeland reduced to a disposable state that… “leads to a rubbish dump/by the cemetery.” Powerful is the word. Readers will find that this book contains short writings requiring extensive deliberations.

Critique: I was enthralled, mesmerized, intrigued, and enamored with this collection. Zimbabwean writers deserve the center of the literary stage. I have reviewed several works from this genre and my fascination and appreciation continues. I truly know that educators in the fields of language and history will find this collection useful for adult education. The readings flow easily and well, but the issues are suited for mature readers. I recommend this book to all!

Song of the Carnivores Competition Winners

2011-09-23T08:36:00.005+02:00

Edgar Langeveldt and Peggy Lendrum shared the $500 prize for the Song of the Carnivores lyric writing competition.

The competition aims to encourage interest amongst young people in conservation, particularly of the endangered carnivores - lion, cheetah, hyena, leopard and wild dog.

The results were announced during the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo by Brian Jones of 'amaBooks Publishers.

Consideration will be given to writing music for the lyrics and the piece would then be performed for the first time at the Bulawayo Music Festival in 2012. The other shortlisted writers were Kurai Mombeshora, Vera Taylor, Mark Ferris and Tegan Mortimer.

The competition was supported by British Council, Zoological Society of London, Academy of Music, Warren Buffett Foundation and 'amaBooks.

The winning lyrics were:

Eternal Creature, by Edgar Langeveldt

It's a celebration of life, a cycle of seasons

They all have their pride, they all have their reasons

To exist and endure, so natural and pure

In the song of the carnivore, eternal creature!

And the song is a chorus of their pups and cubs

And the beauty in their lives is the beauty in us!

Join the African pack, keep their future secure

They've been there all ages, eternal creature!

Running and running, they never grow tired

Painted fantastic, colours vivid and wild

Panting and patient, pursuing their prey

Marathon pacing, endurance all day.

A team and a family, working closely as one!

Resourceful, resilient, they flash in the sun.

A cloud of hot dust and the hunted is down!

No rest or retreat till the hunting is done!

Under moonlit star-canopy, the queen of the night!

Fiery eyes, setting shadows alight.

Silently stalking through dappled midnight,

Treetops and rocks, razors hidden from sight

Padding, patrolling while others still sleep

Launching attack with a single, quick leap!

A rush of the wind and the hunted is down

No air in the throat, no heartbeat, no sound...

With a flick of high tail, sleek turns on the sprint

She's nimble, she's agile, she's speedy like wind.

The fastest on four legs, a blur off the ground

A curved back, elastic, a leap and a bound!

She's swifter than lightning, and sure of feet

She corners and captures in motion complete.

The plains are her runway, the hunted her prize

Up off like a missile, she flows and she flies!

Royalty, majesty, golden in class!

Powerful, proud in a palace of grass.

A pride and a territory, all corners are home

From deserts to jungles, savannas to roam...

The kings and the queens with jewels for eyes

A crown and a mane and those powerful thighs!

A throne set atop all creatures in sight

The roar of the conqueror, brave in the fight!

Laughing and cunning, trailing the hunt

Left-overs for breakfast, a big bone for lunch.

Grabbing at pieces, jawbones that crunch

Master recyclers, no wastage, no want.

Spotted and speckled, no two are the same

Wondrous and weird, they purify game:

Timeless and tireless, cleansing the plain

Cutting, refining the sick, old and tame.

Join the celebration of life, the cycle of seasons

We all have our pride, we all have our reasons

To exist and endure, so natural and pure,

Sing the song of the carnivore, eternal creature!

And our song is a chorus of their pups and cubs

And the beauty in their lives is the beauty in us!

Join the African pack, keep our future secure

They've been there all ages, eternal creature!

Song of the Carnivores, by Peggy Lendrum

Listen! Can you hear in your heart

The beat of an African drum?

A call of the wild

From kopje and vlei

Drumming a song

Through the night to the day -

It's an animal cry, a message for help -

Listen! Listen to the drum

In soft moonlight a leopard prowls

With silent paws and dripping jowls.

Black rosettes on golden coat,

A hungry cough deep in her throat,

A buck knows danger, starts to flee –

Too late - it struggles helplessly.

Yet hidden are the drums of fear –

A trap ‑ a gun ‑ a cruel snare.

She crouches low in waving grass

Eyes fixed on prey ‑ if one should pass

She'll spring and sprint and swipe her paws,

Her victim gripped in fierce jaws,

Lions kill to stay alive –

The pride can eat, the cubs survive.

But closer beat the drums of fear

Perhaps a shot? A silent spear?

Golden eyes, alert, that stare,

Neat head, long legs, a watchful air,

Teardrop streaks upon its face,

A cheetah sits with poise and grace.

A flicking tail, a twitching ear –

Then it's gone, a spotted blur,

Heard on the wind, the drums of fear –

Poachers! Dogs are there.

A useful creature is this beast

A slinking form that likes to feast

On helpless young ‑ or others' prey!

Hyenas scavenge night or day.

Their jaws can snap a bone in half,

And in the night their weird laugh

Is music for the drums of fear

As witchcraft seekers set a snare.

A Joseph's coat, big rounded ears,

The white‑tipped tail a flag for peers –

Wild dogs live in strict control,

A female plays the alpha role.

They hunt in packs to run down prey,

But distant drums beat loud to say

They're now on the endangered map

From bullets, poison, or a trap.

But listen! Now can you hear

The animals' song in the drum?

It's a cry to us all

Man, woman and child

To care for our earth

To cherish our wild –

It's our 'now and forever' for aeons to come

We'll listen! We'll answer the drum.

'amaBooks at the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo 2011

2011-09-17T07:16:00.004+02:00

'amaBooks will be part of several events during Intwasa 2011. Our major commitment is to launch Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe at the National Gallery in Bulawayo on the last night of the festival - at 5pm on Saturday 24 September. The launch will feature readings from John Eppel, Christopher Mlalazi and Raisedon Baya. A special feature of the launch will be Owen Maseko painting his interpretation of a scene from NoViolet Bulawayo's story while the excerpt is being read.

'amaBooks appreciates the support that is being given to this project, for the launch from Alliance Francaise de Bulawayo, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo and Intwasa, for the publication from the Beit Trust, The Association of Little Presses and Alliance Francaise de Bulawayo.

We are also involved in the Song of the Carnivores lyric writing competition, and the winner will be announced at the Gallery at 5 pm on Tuesday 20 September. The aim of the project is to raise awareness of the value of, and the vulnerability of, five carnivores of Africa - lion, cheetah, leopard, hyena and wild dog. There have been some superb entries to the competition, from Zimbabweans throughout the world. Entrants who have confirmed they will be attending and will read from their work include author Peggy Lendrum and comedian Edgar Langeveldt. A medley of other entries will be performed by local poets Tswarelo Mothobe and Siphosethu Mpofu.

On Wednesday 21 September, between 3 and 5pm, a workshop/discussion session on Writing and Publishing in Zimbabwe will be facilitated by 'amaBooks. All writers are welcome to attend.

The winners of the Intwasa Short Story Competitions - the Yvonne Vera Award, the N.S. Sigogo Award and those for youth - will be announced at the Gallery on Saturday 24 September at 12pm.

Conversations with Writers: John Eppel and Together

2011-09-08T06:40:00.006+02:00

Conversations with Writers

Presents interviews with writers, publishers and literary activists.

John Eppel

http://conversationswithwriters.blogspot.com/2011/09/interview2-john-eppel.html

John Eppel is a teacher, an award-winning poet, short story writer and novelist.

His books include the poetry collections, Spoils of War (The Carrefour Press, 1989) and Songs My Country Taught Me (Weaver Press, 2005) as well as the novels, Hatchings (amaBooks, 2006) and Absent: The English Teacher (Weaver Press, 2009).

In this interview, John Eppel talks about Together(amaBooks, 2011), his latest book:

How would you describe Together?

My latest book, Together, is a joint affair, combining poems and short stories by Julius Chingono and me; so it’s our latest book – a poignant phrase since Julius did not live to see it in print.

I wrote my portion of the book in 2008. Since I was earning almost nothing as a teacher, I applied for a year’s leave, and wrote three books: a novel, Absent: the English Teacher, a collection of short stories, White Man Walking, and a collection of poems, Landlocked. I sent them to Weaver Press who accepted the novel but rejected the poems and short stories. It was from these rejected items that my contribution to Together was made.
I sent Landlocked to three other publishers, Snailpress (Cape Town), Bloodaxe (UK),Carcanet Press (UK), all of whom rejected it.

Then Julius and I met with Brian Jones and Jane Morris of amaBooks, and we decided to bring out a joint volume. The title was suggested by Brian, and the project was generously supported by the Zimbabwe Culture Fund Trust. Dr Drew Shaw of Midlands State University agreed to write an introduction, and it wasn’t long before the University of New Orleans Press and the University of Kwazulu-Natal Press agreed to co-publish.

What advantages and/or disadvantages has your choice of publishers presented?

amaBooks of Bulawayo would have been my first choice for all my books, but they seldom have the wherewithal to finance a publication; that is largely because they have the commitment (and courage) to promote new Zimbabwean writing, including poetry, which almost nobody buys. Indeed, more people write poetry than read it!

An obvious disadvantage with a small, underfunded publisher like amaBooks, is distribution; and the sort of promotion you get with big publishers, like book-signings at major retail outlets, appearances on radio and television etc.

A huge advantage for a writer like me, who has a tiny readership, is that small publishers, who are more committed to promoting literature than to profiteering, will accept my books. My most recent, still unpublished novel, The Boy Who Loved Camping, spent more than seven months with Penguin South Africa before it was rejected on the grounds that the publishers did not think they could make a commercial success of it.

One significant way amaBooks has dealt with these problems, in the case ofTogether, has been to persuade publishers from two other countries to co-publish. That can only benefit the distribution and the promotion of the book.

Which aspects of the work you put into the book did you find most difficult?

I didn’t find anything difficult. The publishers, on the other hand, were particularly disturbed by one of my stories, “Of the Fist”, set during the run-up to the 2008 Presidential elections, which they asked me to omit. It’s a very violent story about political rape and murder, based on a real incident. Come to think of it, most of my stories and poems in this anthology are based on real incidents. We replaced “Of the Fist” with a harmless satirical sketch called “The CWM”.

For most of my writing life, I have thought of my predicament as someone who is neither African nor European to be a disadvantage; as if, somehow, I had slipped through a crack; but now that my years as a Zimbabwean have caught up with my years as a Rhodesian, the crack has metamorphosed into a threshold, a magical place where opposites merge, where contradictions become paradoxes. Now I don’t have the bitter thought that I am neither African nor European; I have the sweet sensation that I am African and European. And it is this aspect of my work that I have enjoyed most. I can imagine cutting-edge experts in postcolonial literature snorting at these sentiments, but I’m too old now to care.

What sets Together apart from other things you've written?

The potent symbolism of two elderly Zimbabweans from different cultures, races, regions… coming together and sealing a fissure. It’s a pity one of us isn’t a woman!

In what way is it similar to the others?

It is steeped in irony, which can so easily be misread.

It is frequently funny in the way that a cartoon is funny. When Ranka Primorac said, in an essay entitled “Poised for Literature’s Last Laugh”, that “There is remarkably little laughter resonating across the history of Zimbabwean literature”, she swept Julius Chingono and me under the carpet.

How many books have you written so far?

Spoils of War, 1989 (The Carrefour Press, Cape town), poetry.
DGG Berry’s The Great North Road, 1992 (The Carrefour Press, Cape Town and Hippogriff, Johannesburg), novel.
Hatchings, 1993 (The Carrefour Press, Cape Town), novel. [re-published by amaBooks in 2006]
The Giraffe Man, 1994 (Queillerie, Pretoria), novel
Sonata for Matabeleland, 1995 (Snailpress, Cape Town and Baobab, Harare), poetry.
Selected Poems 1965-1995, 2001 (Childline).
The Curse of the Ripe Tomato, 2001 (amaBooks, Bulawayo), novel.
The Holy Innocents, 2002 (amaBooks, Bulawayo), novel
The Caruso of Colleen Bawn, 2004 (amaBooks, Bulawayo), poems and short stories.
Songs My Country Taught Me, 2005 (Weaver Press, Harare), poetry.
White Man Crawling, 2007 (amaBooks, Bulawayo), poems and short stories.
The Boy Who Loved Camping, 2008 [awaiting a publisher], novel.
Absent: The English Teacher, 2009 (Weaver Press, Harare and Jacana, Johannesburg) novel.
Together, with Julius Chingono, 2011 (amaBooks, Bulawayo and UNO, New Orleans and UKZN, Durban), poems and short stories.

What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

I think, the way I have learned to fuse, mainly through parody, prosody with socio-political commentary.

In my poems in Together, you will find examples of the Blues, the sestina, the haiku, the ballad, the sonnet, the Sapphic, vers libre, dramatic monologue, pure lyric... I even invented a new form, which I (no longer secretly) call duodecadina. It is called “Yet another Flower Poem” and it consists of two ten-line stanzas. Each line consists of fifteen syllables, and the end words of the first stanza are repeated exactly in the end words of the second stanza. If you don’t notice all these details when you read it (with enjoyment!) it succeeds. It is an attempt at the art which conceals art. Of course, a lot of this has to do with healthy self-mockery.

Do you write every day?

I write during school holidays and occasionally over the weekends.

With poetry I get an image or a rhythmic cluster of words, almost never an idea. The moment of inspiration is passive, like a flower awaiting pollination. With prose (most of the time), it’s the other way round, a bee looking for a flower to pollinate.

In a sense, my writing never ends - it stops.

Bulawayo Launch of Where to Now? on 24th September

2011-09-06T15:10:00.004+02:00

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe will be launched in Bulawayo at 5pm on Saturday 24th September at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. All are welcome to come to listen to readings from the book and to meet the writers.

The launch is part of the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo, which runs from 19th to 25th September.

Publication of the book has been supported by the Beit Trust, the Association of Little Presses and Alliance Francaise de Bulawayo, and the launch is supported by Intwasa and Alliance Francaise de Bulawayo.

'amaBooks at the Jozi Book Fair

2011-08-27T08:58:00.006+02:00

Following the launch of Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe at Wits University Writers Centre, 'amaBooks took part in the 2011 Jozi Book Fair at Museum Africa in Newtown, Johannesburg.

As well as selling books, meeting existing and potential writers, and attending round table discussions, including 'Women and South African Publishing', 'Social Media, Reading and Writing' and 'The Arab Spring', we attended several book launches. 'amaBooks led a discussion group on Publishing in Southern Africa during which links were made with fellow independent publishers from the region.

Contacts were also made with several independent bookshops in South Africa, so that copies of Where to Now? and other 'amaBooks publications are available in Xarra Books of Newtown, Boekehuis of Auckland Park, Love Books of Melville, Imbizo Gallery at the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens, Guyo Books of Makhado and Clarke's Books of Cape Town. Arrangements were made with a distributor, Bacchus Books, so that copies of Where to Now? will be obtainable from various Exclusive Books branches and other bookshops across South Africa.

Where to Now? can also be bought online elsewhere in the world, apart from the United Kingdom, through the African Books Collective, Amazon and other websites. Parthian Books will launch the book in the United Kingdom in March next year.

'amaBooks were supported in travelling to Johannesburg by Art Moves Africa, and for having a stand at the Jozi Book Fair by the Goethe Institute.

Together, reviewed on www.panorama.co.zw

2011-08-06T20:03:00.004+02:00

Together By Julius Chingono & John Eppel

(http://www.panorama.co.zw/index.php/home/34-panorama-news/96-together-by-julius-chingono-a-john-eppel-.html)

Published by ‘amabooks in Zimbabwe and Europe, and in South Africa by University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Published in North America by UNO Press and distributed by National Book Network.

Together is a collection of short stories and poems that were written by Julius Chingono and John Eppel. They tackle serious social issues with wry humour and flowery language. They explore aspects such as politics, Gukurahundi, religious hypocrisy. One laughs through and through. This is a must-read for people who have a good sense of humour and a no-go-area for those whose humour wires take long to heat up.

The book has a balanced narration as it is told from the mind of both a black and a white Zimbabwean, who live in different set ups. Chingono is from the eastern part of Zimbabwe and Eppel is from southern Zimbabwe but both believe that their main agenda is fighting poverty and social injustices. They castigate greed by those in power especially political leaders and blame them for the squalid conditions most citizens live under. This theme is felt in the work of the two writers.

Chingono’s Leave My Bible Alone criticises religious hypocrisy. Gore goes to the Anglican services every Sunday but proceeds to the pub as soon as the Sunday service is over; taking his Bible with him and the scene is just hilarious. Adults and children alike make fun out of this weird scene and he makes a fool of himself.

His work focuses on the hardships and challenges of everyday situations in the lives of mere citizens of Zimbabwe where the poor get poorer in a socialist revolution and the rich get fatter and richer from exploiting the poor. This mentality is also challenged - that of the capitalistic value system in the poem I lost a Verse.

A business person thinks his business is more important than what the poet is writing and in the process the poet forgets what he wanted to write. All that matters to the business person is the deal he is working on with a caller on his phone while the poet’s work is deemed less important.

However, there are times when the less privileged also exploit each other as in the case of the toilet cleaner in Shonongoro. She tries to supplement her meagre salary from the council by swindling the public of the money they have when nature calls - something they do not have control over.

His political commentary is felt in We Waited. Voters in Norton try to regain control of their party but the candidates they choose are disqualified by their party’s elite.

They are forced to vote for someone who is imposed on them and when they expect to be helped by the local party leader they are taken aback as she gets them arrested.A number of them are run over by a truck but the newspapers report that only seven Zanu PF supporters were killed in an accident that they are yet to look into.

Eppel on the other hand dwells much on Gukurahundi events and the class struggle. Most of his work is satire and criticises the failures by political leaders especially in the Government of National Unity, their greed, abuse of power and self-centredness. Bloody Diamonds for instance emphasises the greed of the leaders who want to get all the diamonds for themselves instead of developing the nation. The main character is killed by helicopter fire as he fills his bag with the diamonds.

He even criticises his race in the story The CWM where the newcomer, a white woman terrorises older occupants of the suburb as she feels they are not civilised and make a lot of noise with their chicken, stray pets and children. The fight between the Blacks and Whites is captured in the Pact where the land issue takes centre stage.

The Debate tells of Mr Wynken, Prof Blynken and Cde Nod and these characters have an uncanny resemblance to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara and President Robert Mugabe. They all get the same applause after presenting their different viewpoints on how the economy should be revived. The winner is determined by the magnitude of applause so no one wins this particular contest as all of them get the same volume of applause.

Democracy at Work and at Play tells of the futility of the whole COPAC process where citizens are told of things they do not understand. In this story, the COPAC delegation is sent to Matabeleland but amongst them there is no one who can speak IsiNdebele beyond salutations. The people do not understand all that is being said because it is in English and they end up bringing their own grievances which have nothing to do with the making of a new constitution.

The ex- combatants as always present their case that the want a life-president and everyone is forced to buy into the idea after threats that anyone who thinks otherwise will have their homes burnt down. The delegation is later kicked out because they are thought to be people from the MDC.

Gukurahundi stories include Two Metres of Drainage Pipe where the narrator tells of the story of how he and his brother and friend were captured and taken to Bhalagwe base where they were tortured day and night. His brother was tortured in a drainage pipe and beaten until he died. Then the victim was buried in a grave he was forced to dig. In a way it addresses the psychological trauma people bear from the Gukurahundi experience.

The narrator remembers the event because he sees his neighbours’ children playing in an asbestos drainage pipe. There is also a poem carrying the experiences at the Bhalagwe camp; Bhalagwe Blues, where he talks of other ways of torture like castration and suffocation especially of ex-ZIPRAs that they suffered at the hands of the 5 Brigade after the then Prime Minister Mugabe urged them to destroy the Matabeleland part of the country.

The two writers present their work from the side of the general populace commonly known as the povo and expose the injustices they are made to suffer at the hands of those in power and those that have money amassed more possessions than the rest. – Reviewed By Sibusiso Tshuma.

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe launched at Wits Writers Centre

2011-08-05T21:51:00.002+02:00

Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe was launched at Wits University Writers Centre on August 5, as part of 'amaBooks at the Jozi Book Fair. The event was attended by an appreciative audience of over 60 people, who listened to readings from three of the writers in the book - Novuyo Rosa Tshuma from her story Crossroads, Sandisile Tshuma from her story The Need and Thabisani Ndlovu from his Making a Woman. Jane Morris read an excerpt of NoViolet Bulawayo's story from the collection Snapshots. The audience participated in a lively discussion about writing, publishing and Zimbabwe after the readings. 'amaBooks have a stand throughout the Jozi Book Fair, held at Museum Africa in Newtown from 6 - 8 August.

The Zimbabwean reports Where to Now? at the Jozi Book Fair

2011-08-05T08:13:00.002+02:00

Zim authors in spotlight

’amaBooks put Zimbabwean authors in the spotlight at the Jozi Book Fair this week, where they launched their latest short story collection - Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe.

It features 16 Zimbabwean writers - Raisedon Baya, NoViolet Bulawayo, Diana Charsley, Mapfumo Clement Chihota, Murenga Joseph Chikowero, John Eppel, Fungai Rufaro Machirori, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende, Christopher Mlalazi, Mzana Mthimkhulu, Blessing Musariri, Nyevero Muza, Thabisani Ndlovu, Bryony Rheam, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Sandisile Tshuma.

“The writing in this collection, at times dark, at times laced with comedy, is set against the backdrop of Zimbabwe’s ‘lost decade’ of rampant inflation, violence, economic collapse and the flight of many of its citizens. Its people are left to ponder – where to now?,” say the publishers.

“In the pages of Where to Now? you will meet the prostitute who gets the better of her brothers when they try to marry her off, the wife who is absolved of the charge of adultery, the hero who drowns in a bowser of cheap beer and the poetry slammer who does not get to perform his final poem. And many more.”

The collection is the fifth book in the award-winning ’amaBooks Short Writings series, the most recent being Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe, chosen by New Internationalist as one of their two ‘Best Books of 2009’.

Where to Now? is being co-published with Parthian Books of Wales and the book will be available in the United Kingdom in March 2012. Parthian will launch the book together with Bryony Rheam’s debut novel This September Sun, published by ’amaBooks in 2009.

Jozi Book Fair takes place from 6-8 August at Museum Africa in Newtown. “As with the previous ’amaBooks collections, Where to Now? contains stories from both well-known and new writers. This time we are particularly pleased to have a story from 2011 Caine Prize winner NoViolet Bulawayo,” said Brian Jones of ’amaBooks.