Huchu to launch novel in Edinburgh - The Zimbabwean

Ellah Allfrey interviewing Tendai Huchu at the Edinburgh Festival
photo courtesy of Petina Gappah

Tendai Huchu is set to launch his second novel,The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician, on Friday October 30 as part of the Edinburgh Independent Radical Book Fair. The novel was published in Zimbabwe by 'amaBooks and in the UK by Parthian Books.

Next month Huchu's book becomes available in Nigeria through the publication by Kachifo. Huchu will be travelling to the Ake Arts and Book Festival which runs from 17 to 21 November under the theme, 'Engaging the Fringe'. Dialogue will focus on culture and creativity, with reference to genres and forms that do not often receive deserved attention.

The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician will also be available in the United States next year through the University of Ohio Press and it is to be translated into German and Italian.

The novel is a carefully crafted, multi-layered novel. Although set in Edinburgh, 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.

Huchu is a prolific writer and and his short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Manchester Review, Ellery's Queen's Mystery Magazine, Gutter, AfroSF, Wasafari, The Africa Report, Kwani? and many other publications. As well as writing Tendai Huchu has translated works from Shona into English.

He is a PhD student of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.

The Edinburgh Independent & Radical Book Fair is an annual literary festival, which takes place in October providing 5 days of cultural and literary events which are free for all to attend.

Set up in 1996, past fairs have been opened by writers such as Wole Soyinka, Vandana Shiva, Benjamin Zephaniah, Shere Hite and Mark Thomas.

In addition to author events and book launches there are school workshops, film screenings, an exhibition and creative writing workshops. The aim is to give plenty of time for discussion at events and to encourage dialogue between writers and their audience, and amongst readers – this often spills over in to the bar and café area afterwards.

The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician is set in Edinburgh and revolves around the lives of three Zimbabwean men trying to make a new life there as immigrants. Lauri Kubuitsile, in her review of the book in Botswana's Mmegi, writes: ‘The three storylines might work well alone, but are made more by being woven expertly into and through each other. The writing is beautiful, in places stunning. The descriptions of Edinburgh are from the pen of someone who loves that city and it can’t help but show through his words. There are many books about Africans in the diaspora, many books that appear similar after a while, but not this one. This one stands apart.’

From: http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2015/10/huchu-to-launch-novel-in-edinburgh/

Zimbabwean Writers feature in a Celebration of Africa

from: http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2015/09/zimbabwean-writers-feature-in-a-celebration-of-africa/

  

Tendai Huchu and Bryony Rheam are set to take part in debates at Africa Utopia. Back for a third year Africa Utopia celebrates the arts and culture of the African continent. The festival looks at how Africa can lead the way in thinking about culture, community, business and technology and includes topics ranging from fashion, gender and power in politics, sustainability and activism. The 2015 edition of the festival features some of Africa's greatest artists across music, dance, literature and the arts, including Baaba Maal, Spoek Mathambo, Tosin Coker, Irenosen Okojie, Tony Allen, Toumani and Sidiki Diabaté, Orchestra Baobab, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Chineke! and Chi-chi Nwanoku.

The festival will be held between Friday 11 September to Sunday 13 September at the Southbank Centre in London. Tendai Huchu is due to take part in a panel on 12 September about 'African Male Identity', exploring the truths and myths of African masculinities, identities, sexualities, fatherhood and friendship. His second novel The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician has recently been published by amaBooks in Zimbabwe and by Parthian Books in the United Kingdom, and will soon be published in Nigeria, North America and Germany.

Joining Tendai at the festival will be Bulawayo-based writer, Bryony Rheam, who is a panellist the following day - Sunday September 13. The panel of which she is a member, will be looking at how genre fiction is changing the narrative of African fiction. Pulp and genre fiction include: sci'fi, horror, crime, erotica, utopia and historical fiction. Following on her first novel, This September Sun, Bryony has just finished writing her second novel, which is a murder mystery set in Bulawayo. This panel is chaired by Zimbabwean editor and literary critic, Ellah Allfrey.

During her visit to the UK Bryony will spend several days in Torquay, where she will receive her prize for being a winner of the Write Your Own Christie writing competition, which celebrates the work of one of the world's best-selling novelists, Agatha Christie. The competition involved writers from around the world writing a collaborative novel, starting with the opening of Christie's A Murder is Announced. Each month, writers were asked to submit the next chapter of the story. The judges then selected the winner for that particular month, and the competition, and the novel, then evolved over a nine month period. Bryony was runner-up for chapter seven, and winner for chapter eight, the judges commenting about her winning entry: 'It was a confident chapter with a terrific ending, as well as a carefully plotted solution.'

Bryony's prize is one night's accommodation at the Grand Hotel in Torquay, where Agatha Christie spent her honeymoon with her first husband. That evening, there will be a dinner at Christie's house, Greenway, now a National Trust property, also attended by the other prize-winners. Before the dinner, there will be a tour of the house, which is now a National Trust property. At the dinner will also be Christie's grandson, Matthew Pritchard, and her British and American publishers at HarperCollins.  Agatha Christie was born in 1890, so this year is the 125th anniversary of her birth and there is a special celebration in Torquay where the annual Agatha Christie Festival is held.

As a great fan of Christie's, Bryony is thrilled to be among the prize-winners. References to Agatha Christie can be found in This September Sun. The character of the grandmother in the novel is also passionate about Christie's work and her intricate plots.

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

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.

Brian Chikwava's love-hate history with Zimbabwe

Brian Chikwava, who has contributed short stories to Short Writings from Bulawayo III and Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe, is interviewed in The Zimbabwean about a forthcoming lecture on the theme 'The Past is Another Country':

"I love it for innumerable things, but loathe it for the way it has ceased to care about the plight of its poor and less fortunate."

http://w

ww.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34625:chikwavas-love-hate-history&catid=57&Itemid=37