WEALTH OF IDEAS

By Writers International Network Zimbabwe The Epworth Chapter of the Writers International Network Zimbabwe (WIN) received more than 100 books from Zimbabwe Reads on April 20 in support of the ongoing Epworth Community Outreach Programme. The outreach programme was launched in February this year in partnership with Global Arts Trust to assist aspiring writers, poets, actors, and encourage reading activities in the community. A chapter office was opened at the Epworth Home Industry to aid the outreach programme. Zimbabwe Reads, a collaborative effort of Zimbabweans and international friends who are encouraging a culture of reading by providing materials and access to information, has so far distributed reading material to partner organisations, schools and community libraries. The books, handed over to WIN Founder & Director Beaven Tapureta by Zimbabwe Reads representative Professor Jeffrey Wills, include different copies of ‘ The Write Idea!’ and ‘Writer’s Choic...

Freedom The shackles have been cast off. Chains broken. People once squashed, under the jackboot of Apartheid, are free. Free at last! Freedom came on the 27th day in that April, 1994. Freedom from prejudice. From institutionalised racism. From being relegated to second-class citizenship. Freedom came and we danced. We cried. We ululated as we elected our revered Mandela. President Nelson Mandela. Our very own beloved 'Madiba'. Black and white and brown and those in-between, All hues of this rainbow nation, rejoiced as we breathed in the air of freedom and democracy. Today we pause. We remember. We salute. The brave ones whose sacrifices made this day possible, on that 27th day of April, 18 years ago. Today we dance. We sing. We ululate. We cry. Tears of joy and tears of loss. Of remembrance and of forgiveness. Of reconciliation and of memories. Today we pause. We acknowledge the tasks ahead. The hungry. The naked. The destitut...

6:00 AM. Have been up since 5:30, to finish the revision touches on a story that's finally crawling out of its compost, which, amazingly, it seems to drag along with it, like those creatures that, while their bodies grow, drag their house, their shell, with them everywhere they go; until you actually you begin to take seriously what's said about bodies being houses, or house being bodies. At 7000 plus words, the story is a tad longer than I often prefer, so I'm now looking to enjoy (with dread) the process of reducing the number of words to 5000, which is going to mean a lot of deleting and adding, that tendency of prose to gain strength when some of it's limbs are pruned. I know within this jungle of words, the story wriggles.  6:11 AM: What I have been doing since 5:30 is check all the blog updates and the facebook statuses of my writer friends. I feel more productive than if I had focused only on deleting, but now the story is on the desk, on my left, and on the...

NoViolet Bulawayo - Open a Book, Read Africa - YouTube

This is a good time to be a reader of Zimbabwean literature. Of course, any time is good, but none as good as now. My line-up of Zimbabwean books that I should read is growing, rapidly. I called it my line-up, but really it is my debt: some of these books (most of them rather) came directly from the authors or their publishers, usually hot off the press, sometimes before they are launched. Gratefully,  I have received them, I have browsed them, but have always waited for the best time to read them, and as they continue to pile up, I can't even get the words to describe my excitement, my sense of anticipation as the semester comes to the end, and the summer break beckons. I will be reading a lot of Zimbabwean books this summer, concluding the whole experience with a visit to Zimbabwe. I want to try to make the ZIBF Indaba this year. What you see below is a partial (but growing) list of received or acquired books by Zimbabwe authors: Chivi Sunsets by Monica Cheru. I was int...

By Beaven Tapureta Pilar Fuertes Ferragut (1962-2012) The Embassy of Spain in Zimbabwe, the arts and culture sector and diplomatic community, have found it hard to accept the tragic loss of a friendly diplomat and arts lover, Pilar Fuertes Ferragut, who passed on in a car accident in Walvis Bay, Namibia on Monday, April 2. She was 50. The late Pilar, as she was affectionately known to her friends, assumed her diplomatic duties in Zimbabwe in 2009 and doubled as ambassador of Spain to Malawi and Zambia. Apart from her diplomatic mission in Zimbabwe, Pilar was at the helm of championing the promotion of Zimbabwean arts and culture before and after a Cultural Centre was established at the Embassy in Harare last year. The Culture Centre runs a number of cultural activities such as the regular Young Women Open Forum, free screening of Spanish films, library services and the book club which is a new baby born last month. The Centre has also begun offering an affordable t...

Presents 2012 SPC Spring Writers Conference Saturday April 14 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM 1719 25th Street Sacramento, CA $30 Non-members, $20 Members Michelle Bitting has work published or forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner , Narrative , Nimrod, Rattle, River Styx, Crab Orchard Review, Passages North, Linebreak, diode, Anti—, the L.A. Weekly and other s. Poems have appeared on Poetry Daily and as the Weekly Featured Poet on Verse Daily . In 2007, Thomas Lux chose her full-length manuscript, Good Friday Kiss, as the winner of the DeNovo First Book Award and C & R Press published it in 2008. Her book Notes to the Beloved , won the 2011 Sacramento Poetry Center Award and was published in 2012. Recently, Michelle won the Beyond Baroque Foundation Award and she has won the Rock & Sling Virginia Brendemuehl Award and Glimmer Train Poetry Open. She has also been a finalist for the Poets & Writers California Exchange contest and Rona...

Zimbabwe Achievers Awards have announced the five writers shortlisted for the Literature Award ahead of the highly anticipated second edition of the event scheduled for Saturday, 28 April at the prestigious Grange Tower Bridge Hotel in London... SHORTLISTED WRITERS 1. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma – Doctor S The story of a Zimbabwean student at Wits University having a nervous breakdown is superbly written. It deals with the psychological trauma of life in Zimbabwe that haunts one even when they have left and the loneliness and alienation of life in the diaspora. 2. Lloyd Matowe – Gweja This is a powerful account of illegal mining at Chiadzwa, the heavy-handedness of the army and police, corruption and the competing personal and political stakes. This is a story that must be told and told very well. 3. Mzana Mthimukulu – What’s in a Dog’s Name? This was the only entry full of humour and wit. The naming of the family dog becomes more than what it is but a subtext of the ...

Joanne Hillhouse, author who has been featured in Munyori Literary Journal , has announce the April 17, 2012 release of he new novel Oh Gad !  The story begins with this line: Nikki didn’t know how long the phone had been ringing before she heard it. What happens when she picks up that phone sends her home to Antigua and sets her on a rocky path that will change her entire life. Joanne HIllhouse says, "I hope you’ll consider taking that journey with her." Oh Gad! is published by Strebor/Atria/Simon & Schuster It is also available through Amazon and other booksellers The author invites you to visit her online pages: http://www.jhohadli.com and http://www.facebook.com/JoanneCHillhouse Amazon Book Description Publication Date: April 17, 2012 A stirring novel about a woman facing cross-cultural odds and redefining everything she understands about her family, herself, and the country she’s never really been a...

By Beaven Tapureta Zimbabwe Reads , collaborative effort between Zimbabweans and international friends aiming to create a reading culture in Zimbabwe, has published a report on the plummeting local reading culture. The report dispels the general excitement that has been going on about the high literacy rate (91.9%) which Zimbabwe enjoys ahead of other African countries. According to the report, this optimistic figure was provided a decade ago by UNESCO and the government, and it is unlikely that the same figure still stands today, given a number of factors that have come into play in the country since about 2005. Literacy rate is here used to mean the percentage of people over the age 15 who can read and write. Zimbabwe experienced deep economic and political crises in the last decade, a situation that has affected the education and relative sectors. According to the report, since 2005 the number of school dropouts increased due to pressure of school fees, the numb...