Blogging Zimbabwean Literature


I had made a resolution: No blogging from September 1 to 14. I wanted to take a break (I don't know why exactly)and resume after two weeks. But I am going to break that to share my excitement (no, it's not a book deal). This week alone I have recieved five books by Zimbabwean authors, books I have been waiting to read. I would have wanted to read them in the summer before school started, but they decided to arrive this week, and I am excited!

On Tuesday, DHL delivered Memory Chirere's Tudikidiki and Somewhere in this Country and amaBooks' Short Writings from Bulawayo II. Then today, I received Weaver Press's Women Writing Zimbabwe (great thanks to Zvisinei Sandi in Stanford). A colleague gave me a copy (today) of Tsitsi Dangarembga's The Book of Not. And, in addition to my reading for work, I was already re-reading Toni Morrison's Beloved and Paradise. So now, with all these books on my desk, I don't know which ones to read now, which ones to read later, although Somewhere in this Country and Women Writing Zim seem to be winning; then there is the Book of Not, and I can't just stop reading Beloved in the middle of Chapter 3. Tudikidiki is beckoning, and the Bulawayo stories are hooting for attention.

Although I had seen all the short stories in Tudikidiki and Somewhere in this Country in manuscript form, it feels great to finally hold the printed final products.

I will read these books in September/October. I may be able to review some of them.

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