Two African Blogs to Watch
I like literary blogs! It's my way to find out about what fellow writers are doing out there, and lately I have been looking to expand my African literature information base, to understand the new trends in African writing. Despite what might be said about lack of publishing opportunities on the continent, African writing is doing well. Believe me when I say this.
Here are two of the best African literary blogs I discovered recently:
One: Thoughts from Botswana. The blogger information says:"I'm Lauri Kubuitsile. I'm a full time writer living in Botswana. My love is fiction, but to make a living I write TV scripts, textbooks, news articles, lesson plans, radio scripts and anything else that requires words being placed in a pattern on a page." She has published a book entitled Murder for Profit. An American by birth, Lauri, now fully resident in Botswana, has a commitment to the literature of Botswana that's inspiring.
Thoughts from Botswana: Informative, informative, informative.
Two: the unofungei fungai blog. Now this is the real deal regarding a lot to do with contemporary Zimbabwean Literature. What's impressive is that Fungai is a Web Technologies whiz, so you go to his blog expecting the hospitality only a professional website can offer. He posts just-like-you-were-there photos, like this one of Ignatius Mabasa (no-nonsense novelist) and Shimmer Chinodya (prolific & versatile writer):
. Shimmer Chinodya attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. It was through him that I even got to know of the then strange name Iowa and I told myself, "One day I'll go there too." It seems, contrary to this early dream, that I don't have to go there--Yet. If you would like to read some works by Shimmer Chinodya (and if you plan to study Zimbabwean literature at some point, you better plan on reading him, especially if I am going to be the one teaching the course),you can start with Harvest of Thorn, which was written as the project for his Iowa degree; it's available on Amazon. He wrote earlier works like Farai's Girls (as boys we had circulated this one among ourselves), Dew in the Morning, but after he did Harvest of Thorns, he was unstoppable, not to mention that he wrote an English textbook series, which I used during my high school teaching days in Chimanimani.
Ignatius Mabasa, who insists in writing in Shona only (not even an English-first, let-me-show-them Ngugian approach, but a straight-Shona-from-unknown-name-to-award-winner-with-first-book insistence).You have to know the Zimbabwe language politics to understand this fully. Too bad I only took that one introductory translation course at UZ, I would attempt to see to it that the world elsewhere gets to read Mapenzi in one of those world languages. Perhaps Mabasa himself, who is a good translator, will translate the novels one day, just so most readers out there don't miss out on the opportunity to hear this important Zimbabwean voice. I enjoyed Mapenzi, read alongside Moby Dick, Hawthorne, and those tales by Poe (It was my immersion into nineteenth century American Literature). Mapenzi would always offer the needed escape then. His latest novel, Ndafa Here, has been praised by Memory Chirere, whose opinion on these matters is often hard to ignore. He describes it as "mature" and "shocking" novel. In this novel, from the little of it I have read, Mabasa follows some of his characters deep into the Diaspora, and zooms in on life in London,for instance. For an excerpt of the novel visit The Works of Mabasa, where you will also see Chirere's review.
Let's go back to Fungai's blog: I visit it daily. Here is how Fungai is described: Fungai James Tichawagana is a web designer, writer and photographer based in Harare. He uses these three things to do something called imagineering- taking something from nothing to- er- something.
Here are two of the best African literary blogs I discovered recently:
One: Thoughts from Botswana. The blogger information says:"I'm Lauri Kubuitsile. I'm a full time writer living in Botswana. My love is fiction, but to make a living I write TV scripts, textbooks, news articles, lesson plans, radio scripts and anything else that requires words being placed in a pattern on a page." She has published a book entitled Murder for Profit. An American by birth, Lauri, now fully resident in Botswana, has a commitment to the literature of Botswana that's inspiring.
Thoughts from Botswana: Informative, informative, informative.
Two: the unofungei fungai blog. Now this is the real deal regarding a lot to do with contemporary Zimbabwean Literature. What's impressive is that Fungai is a Web Technologies whiz, so you go to his blog expecting the hospitality only a professional website can offer. He posts just-like-you-were-there photos, like this one of Ignatius Mabasa (no-nonsense novelist) and Shimmer Chinodya (prolific & versatile writer):
. Shimmer Chinodya attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. It was through him that I even got to know of the then strange name Iowa and I told myself, "One day I'll go there too." It seems, contrary to this early dream, that I don't have to go there--Yet. If you would like to read some works by Shimmer Chinodya (and if you plan to study Zimbabwean literature at some point, you better plan on reading him, especially if I am going to be the one teaching the course),you can start with Harvest of Thorn, which was written as the project for his Iowa degree; it's available on Amazon. He wrote earlier works like Farai's Girls (as boys we had circulated this one among ourselves), Dew in the Morning, but after he did Harvest of Thorns, he was unstoppable, not to mention that he wrote an English textbook series, which I used during my high school teaching days in Chimanimani. Ignatius Mabasa, who insists in writing in Shona only (not even an English-first, let-me-show-them Ngugian approach, but a straight-Shona-from-unknown-name-to-award-winner-with-first-book insistence).You have to know the Zimbabwe language politics to understand this fully. Too bad I only took that one introductory translation course at UZ, I would attempt to see to it that the world elsewhere gets to read Mapenzi in one of those world languages. Perhaps Mabasa himself, who is a good translator, will translate the novels one day, just so most readers out there don't miss out on the opportunity to hear this important Zimbabwean voice. I enjoyed Mapenzi, read alongside Moby Dick, Hawthorne, and those tales by Poe (It was my immersion into nineteenth century American Literature). Mapenzi would always offer the needed escape then. His latest novel, Ndafa Here, has been praised by Memory Chirere, whose opinion on these matters is often hard to ignore. He describes it as "mature" and "shocking" novel. In this novel, from the little of it I have read, Mabasa follows some of his characters deep into the Diaspora, and zooms in on life in London,for instance. For an excerpt of the novel visit The Works of Mabasa, where you will also see Chirere's review.
Let's go back to Fungai's blog: I visit it daily. Here is how Fungai is described: Fungai James Tichawagana is a web designer, writer and photographer based in Harare. He uses these three things to do something called imagineering- taking something from nothing to- er- something.
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Lauri