WEALTH OF IDEAS

I woke up to this great news!  Congratulations, Noviolet. To Becky Hardie at Chatto, debut novel We Need New Names by Caine-prizewinning NoViolet Bulawayo, after a heated auction conducted by Alba Zeigler-Bailey at the Wylie Agency, for publication in 2013. Chatto acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada. We Need New Names tells the story of ten-year-old Darling and her friends Stina, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho and Bastard, who used to have comfortable houses and existences but now live in a shantytown called Paradise. For these children, the only way is down – or out. To America, in Darling's case. Pulled out from the poverty, disease and violence of Paradise by her aunt and taken to the Midwest, Darling faces a whole new set of problems: language, food, friendships, the internet and being part of a community of exiles. NoViolet's story 'Hitting Budapest' won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing and was selected for the Boston Review ...

Pub Date: June 2012 ISBN: 978-1-84780-006-0 $8.99 US/9.99 CAN 352 Pages Trade Paper 5” x 7 ¾” Awarded the International Youth Library’s prestigious White Raven label Award for innovative literary style and artful portrayal of universal themes. This compelling and dramatic novel brings the turbulent history of Zimbabwe to vivid life, encouraging readers to reflect on the true costs of war. 14-year-olds Tariro and Katie are decades, worlds, and generations apart, but their seemingly distant lives are linked by a terrible secret, gradually revealed as they grapple with the complexities of adolescence, family, and a painful colonial legacy. Tariro loves her ancestral home, the baobab tree she was born beneath, her loving family — and brave, handsome Nhamo. She couldn't be happier. But then the white settlers arrive, and everything changes — suddenly, violently, and tragically. Nearly forty years later, Katie loves her doting father, ...

To the New South Africa , We Go   The struggle has just begun The struggle to stay alive. Codesa I, Codesa II, The Peace Accord… The list is endless.   But what do you know,                           With this God-forsaken country… You never know what happens next. The Massacres, Cell Deaths, Brutal Muti Killings… Are the order of the day   This despicable disrespect for human life Is unfortunate yet inevitable. What’s there left is to hope, To hope that someday we’ll all wake up, To the new South Africa. For Mother Your presence alone meant a lot of comfort Warmth and love. But above all Assurance that things would be done. Your love remains enigma. When I fell you were there to pick me up. When in pain I always came running, running to you.   For as long as I can remember There’s ...

1. Congratulations on the recent publication of your book, Fables out of Nyanja . But let's start with the basics. Please tell us about yourself. When did you start writing and what inspired you? Thanks very much. Well, about myself, there is not much to say. I am a postgraduate Human Rights student at Central European University, Budapest (soon finishing actually). What else? I am a human being, African, Ugandan Mukiga. About writing, it is not easy to draw a line and say this is when I exactly started writing. My first sizeable manuscript, which I thought was of a novel but was told by my English composition teacher that it could be a novella at best, was written in 2003. In my Grade 4 in secondary school, my English compositions were regarded as models for my classmates; in fact the teacher used to read them aloud in class and would ask all my classmates to learn from them. Maybe that is when my writing career started, or took shape. But from a year before, I was staff...

Editors Julie Cairnie and Dobrota Pucherova have announced the publication of Moving Spirit: The Legacy of Dambudzo  Marechera in the 21st Century (LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012). The book will be  launched on *Saturday, June 16 at 6 pm in The Buttery, St.  Antony's College, Oxford*, as part of the annual Britain-Zimbabwe Research Day. The launch, which will  include screenings of films from the DVD that accompanies the  book, comes as part of the celebration of  Marechera's 60th birthday.  About the book : This multimedia collection was inspired by the life and work of the Zimbabwean  cult writer Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) demonstrates the growing  influence of this author among writers, artists and scholars worldwide and  invites the reassessment of his oeuvre and of categories of literary theory such as modernism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Including a DVD with  audio-visual creative con...

People are perhaps tired of hearing that I started writing at the age of 13 (It's in my most commonly quoted bio); but I did, and my main influence was Aaron Chiundura Moyo, whose novel Ziva Kwawakabva we were reading at school. We even performed it in inter-schoolscompetitions; it was amazing to know that the stories we were enjoying were actually written by people like us, so I decided to write my own novel, Sara Nepurezha , which was set in my village, Mototi. What drew me to the story was the familiarity of what I created, the anchoring of the story in a specific place. It was magical to send my characters to Runde to bathe, or to let them climb Chisiya and Chigorira hills. But most importantly, writing about my school, Mototi Primary helped me visualize the characters, give them roles that were relatable to me and to people in other villages and beyond. I knew the story had touched my heart, following all the places I had visited, such as Zvishavane, Masvingo and Harare. In...

______________  Beaven Tapureta _______________ Writers in Harare enjoyed a double opportunity for valuable information exchange when they met for a writrer's workshop and a separate writers’ meeting at the Horizon Inn, Harare, on April 28, 2012. The workshop, running under the topic ‘The Writer, Computer and Copyright”, had as its facilitators Rudo J Nyangulu, a blogger, lawyer and CEO at Stimulus Group and Perspectives, and renowned writer Virginia Phiri. The workshop organizers, Zimbabwe International Book Fair, tremendously designed the function such that it followed up to the workshop held under the same topic last year (2011) during the Book Fair. The 2011 workshop was facilitated by Fungai James Tichawangana of the popular showbiz, lifestyle and culture website called the Zimbo Jam. As much as the workshop had its own ‘life force’, the writers meeting that followed an hour later carried a kind of open, touching discussion not common in the writers’ discussion ...