South Africa writers Michael Sears and Stan Trollip, with Zimbabwean writer Bryony Rheam on Agatha Christie's visit to Southern Africa, recorded as part of the 2022 International Agatha Christie Festival.
Bryony Rheam is the author of the double award-winning crime novel All Come to Dust. Michael Sears and Stan Trollip (writing as Michael Stanley) are the authors of the Detective Kubu series.
To watch, please use the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbQqDDPGCqs&t=21s
Parthian Books organised a garden party to welcome Zimbabwean writer Bryony Rheam and her two daughters Sian and Ellie to Wales. The event, which took place in the garden of the Parthian offices in Cardigan, was attended by Parthian Directors Richard Davies and Gillian Griffiths, Publishing Manager Carly Holmes, several Parthian writers and supporters, and the directors of amaBooks, Bryony's Zimbabwe publishers and the co-publishers in the UK of All Come to Dust, Jane Morris and Brian Jones. Bryony and her daughters are spending time in west Wales (Bryony's mother's birthplace) as part of a visit to the United Kingdom.
Bryony's two novels, This September Sun and All Come to Dust, have already been published in the UK by Parthian, and in Zimbabwe by amaBooks, and her debut short story collection is due for publication next year.
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Richard Davies, Bryony Rheam and Gillian Griffiths |
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| Bryony Rheam |
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| Bryony with Sian and Ellie |
Bryony was delighted to discover that her novel All Come to Dust had been on display at the Book Council of Wales bookshop at the National Eisteddfod in Tregaron.
Reproduced from The Standard (https://thestandard.newsday.co.zw/2022/06/26/rheam-to-take-part-on-agatha-christies-trip/)
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| Zimbabwe cover . |
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| UK cover |
All Come to Dust is Rheam’s second book, written in the style of a Christie detective storyThe novel is set in modern day Zimbabwe, but it also looks back to the time just before independence.
Four Bulawayo novelists John Eppel, Violette Kee-Tui, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu and Bryony Rheam in discussion about how they create characters in their novels with Dr Drew Shaw.
Recorded at The Orange Elephant in Bulawayo, with the support of The Centre for English Excellence and The Orange Elephant.
The links to the three sections of the discussion are below:
from: https://brittlepaper.com/2022/05/check-out-this-database-on-women-publishing-book-trade-in-africa/
The list is curated by the Swiss publisher Hans M. Zell and aims “to showcase…the variety, richness and energy of women involved in book publishing and the book trade in Africa today, as well as some of the women who have made significant contributions to the African book sector in the past.”
In the first edition of the list published inThe African Book Publishing Record, 24 women were profiled. Ghana’s Deborah Ahenkorah, to Nigeria’s Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, to Rwanda’s Louise Umutoni, and South Africa’s Colleen Higgs are some of the profiles featured.
The new edition is an additional 28 names from across 8 countries. It includes established names like Kenya’s Muthoni Garland, founder of Storymoja, the Nigerian editor Enajite Efemuaye, Managing Editor of Farafina Books and co-founder of Society of Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN), Uganda’s Hilda Twongyeirwe, Executive Director of FEMRITE, and Trish Mbanga, former Director, Zimbabwe International Book Fair.
The kind of information included in the listings are wide-ranging, from basics about the women and their work including positions held, company/organization’s name, contact address, website, publication etc. to social media handles and links to interviews and press coverage.
The list is a great networking tool, making it easier to connect with African women in the publishing industry. It is also a storytelling project of sorts, in the ways it shines a light on the increasing influence of African women in publishing, showing the changes taking place in an industry that has not always championed gender equality.
The scope of the second edition has been extended to include academics involved in publishing education and training, and who have written extensively, and eloquently, about many aspects of publishing and book history in Africa.
The directory does not, however, currently include women who are literary agents, or editors and publishers of journals or literary magazines.
Click on the link below to access the directory:
Review of All Come to Dust, a murder mystery novel set in Zimbabwe by Bryony Rheam
from BookerTalk May 24, 2022 https://bookertalk.com/all-come-to-dust-by-bryony-rheam-enter-the-mysterious-detective/
Bryony Rheam’s Zimbabwean crime fiction novel All Come To Dust offers a detective who is as much a mystery as the murder he is meant to be investigating. Chief Inspector Edmund Dude models himself on the quick witted, perceptive detectives he’s seen in countless films and TV programmes. He is particularly fond of The Saint. Edmund is itching for a chance to prove he’s their equal and not simply the guy who sits in a back office in a shabby Bulawayo police station organising paper work and files.
His chance comes with the death of wealthy ex-pat Marcia Pullman, a woman who nobody likes and everyone seems to have had a reason to want out of the picture. She bullies her staff, lords it over other members of her book club and looks down her nose at other ex-pats who have fallen victim to Zimbabwe’s rampant inflation.
Edmund’s determination to discover the person responsible for Marcia’s death is frustrated at every turn. Her maid servant and people who knew her fail to pass on key pieces of information or deliberately try to mislead Edmund. Given the run around by the pathologist and denied access to the case files, Edmund comes to suspect that the dead woman’s husband is using his connections high up in the police force to get the case closed down as fast as possible.
Despite being told more than once by his senior officer to keep his nose out of the case and go back to sorting out paperwork, Edmund perseveres. He turns out to be an unorthodox detective who bumbles along with the reluctant help of a heavy-drinking odd job man as unofficial “assistant”. Together they mount night time surveillance operations and stage house break-ins to search for documents.
Edmund is a complex man, a loner and an outsider who looks for order and structure in his life. We learn his backstory through a series of flashbacks to his childhood in 1979. They reveal a mystery in his own life: the fate of the couple who were his mother’s employers. They had taken Edmund under their wing and ensured he got a good education. But one day when he was still a boy, they just disappeared.
There’s a further mystery about the Chief Inspector and his role in the police force that comes to light very late in the novel. It would spoil the book for other readers so I’ll just say that the mystery within a mystery within a mystery structure adds an interesting dimension to All Come to Dust. It makes it far more than just another police procedural.
It’s a carefully structured novel that touches on issues of class, race and the colonial legacy in modern day Bulawayo. More significantly it highlights the way young and poor black Zimbabwean girls become prey to unscrupulous people with empty promises of a better life in another country.
The plot takes a while to unravel and comes with more than its fair share of red herrings until it ends with an Agatha Christie style denouement. It was a little too long for my tastes but I did enjoy the novel’s insights into life in Zimbabwe.
All Come to Dust will definitely appeal to readers who enjoy character-driven crime fiction with plenty of twists and a memorable and unusual detective figure.
Footnotes
Bryony Rheam was born in Zimbabwe and currently lives with her family in Bulawayo. Her first novel This September Sun was named best first book in the Zimbabwe Book Publishers’ Association Awards in 2010. All Come To Dust, her second novel. was chosen as one of ten top African thrillers in Publishers Weekly, who described it as a “stunning crime debut". It was first published in Zimbabwe in May 2021 and worldwide by the Welsh independent press Parthian Books in March 2022.
Reproduced from https://gluedtobook.wordpress.com/2022/04/23/all-come-to-dust-review-329/
Chief Inspector Edmund Dube is introduced in All Come to Dust as he investigates the stabbing of a rich woman, Marcia Pullman. He is then refused access to the case, and police documents, and is removed from the case after it is determined she died of renal failure. Edmund’s past is revealed in a sequence of flashbacks to 1979 as he continues his investigation. A slow-paced police procedural set in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, with subtle references to race, class, mental health, memory, and colonialism.
All Come to Dust, a mystery by Bryony Rheam, is a classic murder investigation steeped in Zimbabwean culture. Many components of the book can only take place in such settings, and they are necessary for the novel to evolve in the first place. The protagonist is a lone wolf with a complicated personality and backstory who is dedicated to completing his task. The characters are well-developed, albeit slowly, with just enough cliches or stereotypes to lead the reader to believe they already know something. At the same time, the plot is both compelling and tiny or contained. It takes its time unraveling and provides enough red herrings mixed in with its hints along the way to make you want to keep reading and not feel cheated out of a satisfying conclusion. Throughout, it is a portrayal of how class, race, and gender still work in contemporary Zimbabwe, not so much an indictment as a laying bare of how injustice and privilege are still baked into everyday life, and the attempts of diverse individuals to break free.
This is an intriguing and often amusing look at a crime that isn’t a crime, as examined by a man who draws inspiration from books and movies. The reader is given the perspectives of all the suspects, however, it’s difficult to believe any of them. In the end, I enjoyed this story. It grew heavier than I had anticipated and dealt with several difficulties I’m currently working through. If you’re seeking a mystery that also serves as a character study of Zimbabwe, this is the book for you.
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