Books

Mungoshi's latest novelBranching Streams Flow in the DarkAuthor: Charles MungoshiPublisher: Mungoshi Press (2013)Reviewed by Stanely MushavaA range of genius runs the tapestry of Charles Mungoshi’s latest novel Branching Streams Flow in the Dark.The novel has occasioned a flare of rave endorsements from such notables as Lizzy Attree, Oliver Mtukudzi and Memory Chirere.With the novel having occupied Mungoshi for over 20 years, as his wife Jessesi said, it is fair to assume that a greater part of that time went to premeditating the title.  The project comes across as a refreshing current at a time when Zimbabwean literature has ceded its traditional eminence and lapsed into a hinterland of obscurity.More than that, it is a stream of consciousness, in the tradition of James Joyce, on an issue...

 COUNT LEV NIKOLAYEVICH TOLSTOYIf I had a double portion of Leo Tolstoy’s dynamic facility in prose, I would ferment an urgent revolution in contemporary art. The grand prodigy of world literature, who soars above his peers in both literary prowess and spiritual devotion, was lauded in life and honoured in posterity but his ideas are still to provoke notable consideration on the modern arena.Tolstoy was a lone genius. Aside being the most famous Russian of the 19th century and, far and away, the greatest writer of his time, Tolstoy stands out as a man of conviction who refused to erase the lead-frame between conscience and convenience, against the example of his contemporaries who were banking on the downgrade of moral standards to buy popularity.Although he is best known for his u...

 Men of letters are often at home at the base of the class pyramid. Figureheads of world literature, notably Leo Tolstoy, Emile Dickinson, William Blake and Dambudzo Marechera, invoked poverty and isolation to make a statement. The occasional appearance of a writer-tramp who defies convention and plies his trade from the peripheries is a familiar phenomenon on the literary arena. Poverty is, however, poised to go staplefare across the literary community this time not by design but due to book piracy. A horde of Sean Timbas is laughing all the way to the bank, having plundered into the painstaking labours of authors and publishers. Whereas it was formerly an optional condition, often the preserve of mystics, radicals and dissidents, more writers might be reduced to a ramshackle e...

Fraternity is one road less travelled. The dispersion of Africans far and wide to eke out sustainable livelihoods is a leap into the night, with millions detached from their cradles longing for an anchor in the face of alienation and deprivation. Notable feats, from the outset of history, owe their actualisation to seldom acknowledged contributions of migrant labour.The world-acclaimed Egyptian pyramids were pitched off the sweat from Semitic brows, while the matchless affluence of Europe and America was oiled on forced African labour, thanks to the double-barrelled atrocity of slavery and colonisation.The Zimbabwean Diaspora continues to provide an intellectual engine for varied host countries, buttressed on its record as Africa’s most literate country, yet not much is made of ...

 Zimbabwean literature is poised for an austere patch. The local book industry has ceded its traditional eminence and is hanging on a wafer-thin lifeline in the face of a digital holocaust. Stakeholder efforts have stretched to the end of the tether. Writers are grappling for an urgent rescue package to bail out their endangered domain. If, as Ngugi WaThiongo once said, literature is the honey of a national’s soul preserved for her children to taste forever, then Zimbabwe risks a cultural under malnutrition of epidemic proportions. Towering stakes are lined up against new authors raring to break into print through established mediums. Literary midwives in the last remaining publishing houses keep slamming steel bars against budding writers pregnant with creative energy, angling...

 A care package is in the line for the late Brian Sibalo’s fans with the emergence of his versatile brother Daniel Sibalo who is currently working on his third album in South Africa. The younger Sibalo storms into the arena at a time the industry is still to recover from the void left by the untimely muting of his brother’s silky, smooth, richly passionate voice and laid-back, jazzy tempo on May 29, 1997. The SA-based psalmist, who did the lead vocals on Brian’s last album Busa Nkosi, made his debut solo appearance with a full-length album, Have Mercy, Oh Lord, in 2007 ten years after the death of the second generation gospel legend. He returned with Coming from the Cold in 2011, a joint effort with the late Freedom Sengwayo’s younger brother, Missiondom. “I am trying to step out o...

Caine Prize winning author NoViolet Bulawayo launched her debut novel, We Need New Names, amid fanfare and rave reviews at the British Council yesterday. We Need New Names is in the run for the Man-Booker Prize to be announced in October, having become the first Zimbabwean novelist to be long-listed for the prestigious award. The book has also been nominated for the Guardian First Book Prize, a feat achieved by Dambudzo Marechera’s House of Hunger alone locally. Speaking at the launch of the book, Bulawayo said: “I am proud to add to the rich tradition of Zimbabwean literature. However, I am not sure why we are celebrated as individuals because we do not come alone, stories come from the communities.” We Need New Names is an extension of the short story Hitting Budapest which earned Bu...

 The grand patriarch of local gospel music, Machanic Manyeruke, has enlisted the services of South African psalmist Sipho Makabane for his new album, Kubva Muhuruva, which is slated for release on September 24. The Big Fish, as Sipho Makabane is fondly known by his regional hordes of fans, fell for Baba Manyeruke’s bait and will feature on a track entitled Uyeza Ujesu. “We have already finished packaging the album and we are good to go. My promoter Dickson Mutswairo, however, felt that it will be a sound idea to defer the release of the album to September when I will stage a show at HICC,” Manyeruke told Herald Entertainment. The seven track album features the title track Kubva Muhuruva, Ruregerero, Baba Vedu Vari Kudenga, Ndigariswe Pakanaka, Mai veMuponesi Wangu, Nemufananidzo Wake an...

 The modest working title of Memory Chirere’s forthcoming poetry anthology, Bhuku Risina Basa, loosely translated, useless book, belies a range of genius.Chirere, an internationally renowned author, academic, editor and literary critic told Literary Outlook  that he has decided to come out of his closet with more than 100 poems authored over 20 years as private exercises.Bhuku Risina Basa is being trimmed for press with the help of Chirere’s editor and friend, the veteran poet Ignatius Tirivangani Mabasa and will be released by Harare-based Bhabhu Books during the last quarter of this year. Chirere’s current inventory includes Somewhere in This Country (2006), Tudikidiki (2007), Toriro and His Goats (2010) and Charles Mungoshi: A Critical Reader (2006), co-edited with Prof Maurice Vambe.Ar...

  A new literary magazine is set to be launched as a lifeline for budding writers who are struggling to break into print through established mediums.The Write Mag will be edited by acclaimed Zimbabwean author, literary critic and academic Memory Chirere and published by Write Africa, an organisation bent on promoting writing and reading in all literary genres.The magazine will be published quarterly, with a special emphasis on reviving interest in African literature.“Budding writers will get more opportunities as there will be publication of new works, as well as profiling of upcoming authors, among other writers,” Write Africa Programs ManagerLawrence Hoba told Literary Outlook.“With targeted distribution around the country, there is a hope that people will revive their interest in readin...