Books

School children (Photo: Africa Check)When schools squeeze parents to beef up their safes, children are the ultimate losers.The commercialisation of education, trending in Zimbabwe through obligatory fund-raising mechanisms by secondary schools, prices a basic right beyond the means of poor children.Not even schools but inequality, poverty and ignorance, the principal demobilisers of development, stand to thrive from the commodification of education.The latest instance of the commercialisation of education in Zimbabwe is the continuance of entrance tests by secondary schools as a condition for enrolling Form 1 students.Schools have continued conducting the tests in defiance of a 2014 ban on the practice by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.Primary and Secondary Educa...

Rabison Shumba In Rabison Shumba’s terms of reception, books must be toolkits for self-development rather than shelf-development. With Bugle, the ghetto advocate, Shumba wants to see “every sour lime become sweet, and every board house turn concrete.” And the capacity for that conversion is not in alchemy but in art.True to the design, Shumba is at the head of a sustained current of inspirational literature in which he provokes everyone to maximise their possibilities regardless of their setting.Where most books are becoming carcinogenic vectors, scaling down moral consciousness, Shumba wants his to be a spiritual diet for the improvement of humanity. Determination to infect every audience possible with hunger for lasting accomplishment, recently saw him genre-switching from pr...

Wole Soyinka (Photo: Entertainment Express)A navigable screen, in computing, usually points back to a dirty floor and a crowded workspace at the head of software development. This necessary contrast is equally visible in the creation and reception of literature in its various categories. There are works which lend themselves seamlessly to their audience and claim the foremost stacks. Yet that polished finish, the illusion of effortlessness in the dazzle of genius, often belies endless midnight hours of trial and error. Succinctly put, greater effort by the creator means less effort for the receiver.In this instalment, I submit not a papal bull but a modest proposal for writers to be at it restlessly for the good of literature. There is already a great deal of restlessness in the...

School children are prejudiced by corruption (Photo: The Herald)Education, the foremost jewel of Zimbabwe’s crown, is under threat. A series of incriminating reports in 2015 indicate that corruption has hit several parts of the sector.Vandal tendencies at the heart of many corporate dysfunctions have torn into the education system, with embezzlement and “tenderpreneurship” demobilising gains made in this flagship accomplishment of Independence.A countrywide audit being conducted by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has established that authorities have prejudiced schools of millions in levy scams.With 1 800 schools (18 percent) covered by the ongoing exercise, auditors from the head office in Harare and those at provincial and district levels have already reported ...

The Idiot Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novels prefigure mankind’s progress through history with a depth of field which goes light years beyond time travel.    The novelist considers the implications for the future from ideas which started routing for establishment during his time. By the time his native Russia became the world’s first officially atheist state, the unsettling implications has been articulated in his work. Dostoyevsky’s great novels, “The Idiot,” “The Brothers Karamazov,” “Crime and Punishment,” and “The Demons,” set him apart in the canon of world literature for their prophetic magnitude. Dostoyevsky’s apocalyptic vision of a world unhinged from the centre, of mankind detached from the source, holds especially for the present. His observation in “The Brothers Karamazov” that “wit...

Chingozie Obioma's The Fishermen “The Fishermen,” a notable debut by Nigerian novelist Chingozie Obioma, multiphases unsettling threads of a dark childhood to process the mistakes of history. Obioma registers touches of genius in this critically acclaimed debut and stakes his claim among the masters of African literature – no mean feat at the age of 28. Although he has already been called the heir of Chinua Achebe, Obioma’s mastery of the questions of the day and rich blend of influences uploads into the African canon a mythic feat uniquely his own.An undercurrent of tragedy courses through the novel, several layers of memory foreboding loss and destruction.While violence looms lethal in the novel, its destablising trail in the lives of the characters goes beyond crude entertainment. There...

Musaemura Zimunya Zimbabwe's highly regarded author Musaemura Zimunya once wrote a newspaper article entitled "Is Marshall also a Poet?" but the artists' lives and careers intersected in more enduring ways.Zimunya is cousin to the classic Sungura icon in a poetic family tree that also features Chimurenga maverick Thomas Mapfumo and the late novelist and national hero, Cde Bernard Chidzero.The rise-to-the-occassion writer and recent Zimbabwe International Book Fair Association (ZIBFA) chairperson has been erroneously credited for writing most of Marshall Munhumumwe's songs, and giving them their poetic texture.He opens up on the rumour, recalls how he and Munhumumwe got reunited by Biggie Tembo after his intellectual strivings in the UK, and shares other creative connections in a wide-rangi...

Wole Soyinka: (Photo: chinadailyasia.com)Book:  Climate of Fear  Author: Wole Soyinka  Publisher: Random House (2005)  ISBN: 978-0-307-43082-3 Wole Soyinka’s creative thread is principally a duel between people and power. The controversial dramatist has levelled his verbal facility, from both the cultural front and the civic sphere, against the abuse of power.He has remained devoted to the deprived and vulnerable, even when he was hunted with a price on his head during the dark days of military dictatorship in Nigeria. In “Climate of Fear: The Quest of Dignity in a Dehumanized World,” the Nobel laureate registers another feat in his crusade against banal power, only with a variation in target.The 2005 book is an impassioned commentary on the destabilising trail of terrorism and totalitar...

Fareed Zakaria stresses a point Book: In Defense of a Liberal EducationAuthor: Fareed ZakariaPublisher: W.W Norton & Company (2015)ISBN: 978-0-393-24769-5The incredible facility of science in the quest to enhance life and knowledge has earned it universal appeal.Everyone seems eager to get a feel of the trending technology; to keep in step with the utility, ingenuity and allure of science. Images of our technologically astute grandmothers on local television give the impression that the generation gap is becoming navigable.A sustained current of high end applications and documentaries on the latest frontiers, from communications, nanotechnology, neuroscience, medicine and astronomy to the internet of things, are consolidating the allure of science.The emergence of ICT magnates as the f...

Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie (Photo: ted.com)Early hours, when sun and song awaken the privileged to earth’s delights, and mellow vistas spread out, leaders may be surprised to know what it takes to endure life away from their vastly diverting luxuries.For then everyone must head away from the impartiality of dreams, each to a familiar course, to consolidate privilege or to gasp for survival in the politically commissioned inferno of poverty.Human suffering is the heart of the matter when leaders need to enhance their audience ratings, and the political calendar makes it convenient to feign alliance with the masses, but often that is all that it is – an election device.Any other day, poverty is the default location of the majority.Poverty stretches the circuit in blogosphere, civic ...