All Come to Dust in Bulawayo

Photos courtesy of Violette Kee-Tui

Last week, Bryony Rheam read from some of her published short stories and from her forthcoming novel, All Come to Dust, at Middys Coffee Shop in Bulawayo. The novel follows Chief Inspector Edmund Dube as he investigates the suspicious death of Marcia Pullman. As the investigation unfolds so does the story of Dube's life from his early years as he begins to put the pieces together of why the Scottish couple, for whom his mother worked, left the country in a hurry and Dube with an abiding sense of abandonment.  

The readings at Middys were well attended, with a scattering of other writers published by amaBooks, including Mzana Mthimkhulu, John Eppel and NoViolet Bulawayo. The event was organised by Hubbard's Historical Tours.

NoViolet Bulawayo and Bryony Rheam

John Eppel and friends

Mzana Mthimkhulu

Bryony is an ardent fan of Agatha Christie, a passion inherited from her grandmother. As testimony to this enthusiasm for Christie, she won the international Write Your Own Christie competition, which involved writing a chapter of a novel in the style of Agatha Christie, following on from chapters of previous winners. She was also runner-up for a previous chapter she wrote.

As her prize Bryony travelled to London to have dinner with Christie's grandson and the detective novel writer's British and American publishers. It will be up to Bryony's readers to judge whether she is able to follow in Christie's footsteps and weave as tangled a web as the best-selling author did in her many works.

All Come to Dust, to be published by amaBooks in November 2018, will be available in Zimbabwe through amaBooks and elsewhere through the African Books Collective.

Bryony's short stories have appeared in several anthologies published by amaBooks: Moving On and Other Zimbabwean Stories, Where to Now?, Long Time Coming and Short Writings From Bulawayo I, II and III. Short stories by Mzana Mthimkhulu and John Eppel have also been published in the anthologies, and John Eppel has had several novels, poetry and short story anthologies published by amaBooks. A story by NoViolet Bulawayo was published in Where to Now?.