Tendai Huchu's 'The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician' Published in Zimbabwe

Tendai Huchu's second novel has been published by 'amaBooks, and is available in outlets across Zimbabwe. It will soon be available elsewhere through the African Books Collective.

Set mainly in the Scottish capital Edinburgh, The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician introduces us to the three Zimbabweans of the title who each struggle to find a place for themselves far from home and the world they knew. The Magistrate tries to create new memories and roots, fusing a wandering exploration of Edinburgh with music. The Maestro, a depressed, quixotic character, sinks out of the real world, preferring novels and fantasy. The Mathematician, a youthful character, follows a carefree, hedonistic lifestyle, until the universes of the three main characters collide.

In this carefully crafted, multi-layered novel, Tendai Huchu, with his inimitable humour, reveals much about the Zimbabwe story as he draws the reader deep into the lives of the three main characters.

The publication of The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician was supported by the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust.

Tendai’s first novel, The Hairdresser of Harare, was published in Zimbabwe and the UK, and was translated into French, German and Italian. This year, Tendai’s short story, ‘The Intervention’, was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. The story was first published in the Indian magazine Open Road Review and is available in Zimbabwe in the Caine Prize anthology The Gonjon Pin and other stories, published by ’amaBooks. The Bulawayo-based publishers are the Zimbabwean publishers of the annual Caine prize anthologies. The collections are published across Africa by other publishers and also in the UK.

Tendai Huchu’s short fiction and nonfiction has been published in magazines all over the world and the quality of his writing has been recognized by his receiving a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Sacatar Fellowship.

'An unusually astute and unflinching writer' The Guardian

 

'Tendai Huchu illustrates universal notions well' The Examiner

 

'Tendai Huchu seems to be the great-grandchild of Jonathan Swift with many voices in his head' Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung