Sarudzayi Barnes on Conversations with Writers

An engaging interview of Saru at Conversation with Writers. She talks about the challenges of publishing which prompted her to start her own publishing company, The Lion Press, which has published at least four books. She also raises the issue of the lack of a reading culture among Zimbabweans both at home and in the Diaspora. Having once targeted her works at the Zimbabwean readers, she has since gone universal, choosing instead to remove the nuances and ideosyncrasies of a writing style reflecting aspects of the Shona language in English. Her works thus seek to translate into standard British English the experiences of her characters.

Readership, readership: I sometimes fear that there are more people writing than there are readers. It seems our families, friends, and fellow writers are the readers of our works at first, until we make a big breakthrough with publishers who are able to market our works.

Good interview.