Books

Maurice Vambe, George Kahari and Memory Chirere (Photo Credit: KwaChirere)“Nothing good can come out of Zimbabwe,” has become the byword of the day.We lack an aggressive estimation of our potential as a nation.Pessimism runs the tapestry of our national outlook. We justify this self-deprecation by playing second fiddle to others on many platforms.However, if any truth underlies our deflated self-esteem, it is not because there is nothing good in Zimbabwe but because we lack the virtue of celebrating and exporting our homegrown accomplishments.The foremost impediment to our cultural development is not lack of funds or absence of talent. Nay; it is our inability to locate those who have excelled among us and build on their achievements.Prof George Kahari, for one, fits into Phillip Brooks’ o...

Arnold "So Profound" Chirimika“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” When John Keats, absorbed in the mesmeric notes of nature, made this observation, he had certainly not foreseen the love-hate relationship of the Internet and creative writing.130 years on, literature is still alive and viral, not so much through the hedge choruses Keats referenced in his sonnet, as through virtual libraries, author pages, online writers’ guilds and share buttons.The proliferation of digital tools and instant communication protocols has, for better and for worse, vastly altered the production and reception of literature in the 21st century.However, we can at least agree that literature has outlived the Web 2.0 sell-by date stamped on it by digital migration to make use of the very space that threatened ...

The Sky is Just the BeginningNicholas Bhero’s debut offering The Sky is Just the Beginning is a comprehensive motivational toolkit, designed to realign individuals with divine destiny and maximise their potential.The book is a refreshing and empowering read, jam-packed with pertinent anecdotes, inspirational nuggets and scriptural references presented in engaging and accessible fashion.Motivational and evangelically literature has become an expansive dumpsite with new titles, mostly self-published, frequenting the shelves at a dizzy pace.However, there has been lack of corresponding quality, as some new authors are scaling down standards and churning out half-backed works just for the joy of seeing their names in print.This has seen motivational literature assume a predictable tenor whereb...

Kwame NkrumahPoetry with a nationalist accent is one of the most enduring monuments of African literature. A thread of love letters – impassioned, potent, poetic endearments to Africa – was unwound at the high tide of liberation.Europe has commissioned poet laureates to give her official occasions the rhyme factor. In Africa, a coterie of heads of states has signed up to give the poetry of the continent presidential signatures.Leopold Senghor, the first president of Senegal and founding exponent of the negritude movement, has been inducted as one of the continent’s foremost poetic thoroughbreds.“Poetry has lost one of its masters, Senegal a statesman, Africa a visionary,” Jacques Chirac, then French president, said on hearing of Senghor’s death in 2001.Senghor is one of the Francophone poe...

Tsumo neMadimikiraZimbabwean literature has a wealth of indigenous narratives which merit greater appreciation and a durable shelf life. At high tide, local languages cross-fertilised proverbial lore and individual creativity to create one of the proudly Zimbabwean success stories in local arts. There was a time when the writers kept the reading public posted with accessible and engaging stories often espoused to a didactic function.The mother tongue seasoned literature with a conservative outlook, ideological potency and the nostalgic flavour of periods elapsed.Major exponents such as Mordecai Hamutyinei, Ndabezinle Sigogo and Aaron Chiundura-Moyo excited popular imagination with texts which facilitated the dialogue of generations.Stories in indigenous languages, perhaps more than any oth...

Tinashe MushakavanhuDr Tinashe Mushakavanhu (TM) is one of the better-known “born-free” Zimbabwean writers and academics. He has edited Emerging Perspectives on Chenjerai Hove: Literature, Politics and Culture, Remembering Marechera, and State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry and contributed to several anthologies including Writing Africa in the Short Story, Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe, A Haunting Touch, and Our Poets Speak: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry. Stanely Mushava (SM) interviews him on some of the topical issues in Zimbabwean and continental literature.SM: What’s your view on the debate about whether African writers are recycling stereotypes on the continent from global media institutions?TM: The problem lies in the fact that African literature is being pr...

Helon Habila (Photo Credit: Parresia Publishers)Poverty is in the orbit of controversy. A point of order has been raised with respect to the direction contemporary African literature seems to be heading.The presentation of the continent as perpetually conflict-riven and impoverished is eliciting a critical backlash.Dissenters are stepping into the line of fire to protest that African’s fairer vistas are being cropped out of the emerging literary canon.New writers seem to be repackaging the Dark Continent mantra for the affluent Western segment of the market.The vectors are being slanted to caricature Africa as the most unsightly division of the world map, or so the dissenters claim.Nigerian writer Helon Habila has objected to the inordinate obsession with poverty, war, child soldiers, geno...

Beavan Tapureta (Photo Credit: KwaChirere)Book: Drums of AfricaEditor: Kennedy MadhombiroPublisher: Diaspora Publishers (2013)Drums of Africa, an anthology of contemporary Zimbabwean poetry, is a trove of artistic nuggets, framed and polished for a range of impressions.The poets, local and diasporan, converge from different backgrounds, to address with different poetic implements, conditions underlying their international experience.Most of the issues under deliberation are old discourses addressed by new voices – familiar terrain traversed through freshly beaten tracks.The artists cross their notes into one Afropolitan symphony. The joint effort is, altogether, a refreshing notification that Zimbabwean poetry is entering a new stretch.Their thematic taskbar oscillates from universal pheno...

Tolstoy's ConfessionThe occasion is a mid-century writers’ retreat. Out in remote detachment from the corporate scheme of life, the writers empty their hearts one to another about the dirty laundry which comes with their trade.“Strike for Life” author John Swinton steps up the podium and laments, Jeremiah-style, the degeneration of the writer from a champion of the poor to a pawn on the chessboard of the power brokers.He foregrounds the criminal functions on the writer’s taskbar including the retail of stereotype, falsehood, perversion, omission, vilification and manipulation.Swinton’s final portrait of the writer features a spineless traitor who prostrates at the feet of capital and sells his people to earn his bread.“We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the ...

Darwin's fairy tale for grown-upsCharles Darwin’s theory of evolution is the orbit around which the secular world revolves.The evolutionary patriarch levelled hammer blows against the foundations of faith with his seminal publication “The Origins of Species” 155 years ago.“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life” remains the principal template for everyone with a lawsuit against God.In clerical language, it is would be the Atheist Mosaic, the Sceptics’ Creed and the Agnostic Talmud. Or, to bundle every sect up, it would be the Mecca where infidels from far and wide converge.Darwin is credited for outfoxing the traditional account of creation which points to God as the intelligent first cause behind the universe.Th...