Category: Books
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Mermaids Smoke Seaweed in Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure’s Liberated Words
Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure’s Starfish Blossoms inhabits the fertile spaces between beauty and decay, sex and death, fantasy and truth. Andrew Chatora engages Vazhure’s liberated poetics of womanhood and memory in this book review.
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When Dambudzo Marechera Met Aaron Chiundura Moyo: A Brief History of Zimbabwe’s Language Wars
In newly independent Zimbabwe, language wars erupted between homecoming writers who had made their names in the language of exile and writers who had worked with the state-run Literature Bureau to grow a Ndebele and Shona canon. Onai Mushava revisits the cold encounters of two of Zimbabwe’s best known writers, Dambudzo Marechera and Aaron Chiundura…
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Castration of the Black Scribe
"Catching Feelings" is a South African romantic comedy, written and directed by Kagiso Lediga. The Netflix thinkpic brings together sex, race and literature as seen through the insecurities of its cruelly self-probing lead character Max Matshane.
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Andrew Chatora on the Faultlines of Nation-Building
Andrew Chatora is a storyteller who hides his stakes in plain sight. The UK-based Zimbabwean novelist gives away the combustibles of his story at the earliest convenience but only names them as they go off in the endgame. Chatora’s books end with a twisted insight that questions our sense of detail and reflows what was…
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More Dambudzo Marechera letters – To Karen, Flora, Amelia and Samantha (Part 1)
What’s race got to do with it? Dambudzo Marechera channelled his Oxford swag, Rastaman aura and leftist virtue signalling to chat up White writer-types. His stated preference for White girlfriends has been brought up by critics who accuse him of misogyny towards Black women and disconnect from the African image.
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Zimbabwe International Book Fair Flexes Proof of Life after Two-Year Covid-19 Break
Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) came to town last week (from 30 September to 1 October) after a two-year COVID-19 break. The book fair did not live up to its international billing as it was poorly attended and short on sponsorship. Organisers are sending a message that they are still out here and need more…
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Zimunya and Munhumumwe: Two Cousins Artistically Defined Our Independence
Musaemura Zimunya and Marshall Munhumumwe’s culturally immersive and nationally minded writing and music have a foundational place in the Zimbabwean canon. The cousins not only found success in the early years of independence but also set the tone for others with distinctively Zimbabwean art. Zimunya remembers his great cousin, who died in 2001, in this…
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Book Review | New African Poetry Turns History Pictures to the Wall
Old Love Skin, a pan-African poetry collection, finds new voices summoning divinity where they please, and turning history pictures to the wall to fill in the blank negatives with ambivalence, impiety and intrigue. Poetry is, here, voice and breath, medicine and blood, origin and trace, unresolvedly tangled in a witching combat.
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Historic Nebula Winner Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki Came for Everything
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki’s Nebula-winning story “O2 Arena” is a biopolitical dystopia in which oxygen has become a commodity, with all the possible class implications.
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Stanely Mushava Is an Old-School Nerd
By Givemore Manyenga/ NUST You don’t need to be told who the light-skinned young man sitting on a chair outside a Journalism Department office, a computer in his lap, is. His white t-shirt broadcasts the cover of Survivor’s Café, the poetry book that landed him a National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for Outstanding Fiction Book…
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Reblogged this on Brian Maregedze.
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