Chitungwiza Mushamukuru


Book Description

Sprawling to the south east of the revered Hararethere is a place millions call home, Chitungwiza as in that olden track, mushamukuru, wakaenda kupiko, Chitungwiza. It is Zimbabwes biggest village, that became a town, that became a city, that became our own Soweto Zimbabwes biggest suburb yet also Zimbabwes Hollywood. It has produced or groomed Zimbabwes creatives and creative industry from film, by the book, poets, musicians, entertainers, academia, media practitioners, sculptors and those involved in other visual arts. In this anthology, Chitungwiza Mushamukuru: An Anthology from Zimbabwes Biggest Ghetto Town, we have work from 1 artist and 11 writers who have called this Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe home, or have wrote home about this place, or have created artworks which highlight the culture, identity, lives, and position Chitungwiza in these matrixes or beyond those highlighted above.




Language, Thought, Art and Existence


Book Description

This book comprises 19 creative non-fiction pieces and essays centred around the topics of language, thought, art and existence seen through the prism of practising artist in contemporary Africa. The collection continues with Zimbabwes Tendai Mwanakas creative non-fiction ideology of presenting non-fiction in a creative, fresh, easy reading, simple language. With most of the essays driven by personal stories, the author ably renders them accessible to a wide spectrum of readers from the scholarly to the journalistic and the general. The pieces are grouped according to the topics, with the language essays starting the book, followed by thought, existential, and art essays. In tune with the adage the personal is political, Mwanaka lets the personal drive these essays as he tries to investigate and conversationally navigate his thoughts, beliefs, feelings and experience on language, existence and art. This is an invaluable contribution to the academic establishment, social theorists, linguists, literary theorists, journalists, activists and the general readership.




Best "New" African Poets Anthology 2020


Book Description

Best New African Poets 2020 Anthology, which can be in part titled the Covid Diaries is the 6th volume of the yearly anthology of contemporary African poets, Best New African Poets (BNAP). In this anthology the poets tackle the covid pandemic, some with fear, some with pain, some with anger, some with forebodings of danger; you sense the feeling of insecurity in all of the entries around this issue. This is understandable. As a humanity we have had to go, and we are still going, through one of the most terrible times in our existence, as millions get swept away in this tidal danger. But we will vanquish this monster, we will come out stronger, in the meanwhile as we fight this monster we continue celebrating our humanity in love poems, in spiritual poetry, in politics and governance, in developmental agendas, in foods, in day to day connections, which will outstay this menace. Best New African Poets 2020 Anthology has over 352 pieces from 140 African poets from among other African countries: Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Comoros, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroun, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana etc, and those of African Diasporas in Portugal, Brazil, the UK, USA, China, etc




Zimbolicious Anthology: Volume Five


Book Description

Zimbolicious Anthology: An Anthology of Zimbabwean Literature and Arts, Vol 5 is the fifth in this yearly journal of Zimbabwean literature and the arts as it happens. The poetry covers a range of subjects; love, spirituality, religion, migration, poet's vocation and as usual the political direction or situation in the country. The fiction deals with a wide range issues, from religious contrivance in Gwiriri's story, drug problem and corruption in Mutize's story, the political and economic strife in Tokwe's story, and the personal trauma story in Chikomo's car accident story. In the nonfiction section we have Muchuri's illuminating essay on another Zimbabwe storyteller, Ignatious Mabasa's Shona books, Zvikomborero Kapuya harks back to the land issue as the starting point and catapult to the misunderstandings between Zimbabwe and her erstwhile foreign enemies, Chikono writes his painful life story on shame families carry when a family member has a child out of wedlock, worst when the child is disabled and Mwanaka has a small philosophical vignette essay on choice. The visual section is heralded by Nhevera's iconic brushworks depicting movement and portraiture, and Mwanaka has an array of art pieces from documentary photography, experimental photography, water colour, computer graphic and installation, wrapping up this new offering.




Because Sadness is Beautiful?


Book Description

"Tanaka Chidora writes with the nerve and verve of firework displays in these poems. There is a peace armed to the teeth here, and over there words are just fugitives scuttling away from the recognition of the reader. Through this burst of iron vocabulary discipline, the poet suggests that even if sadness could be all we are left with, we still need to give sadness a try until it becomes beautiful, because sadness has always been beautiful, anyway." - Memory Chirere, University of Zimbabwe




Re-centring Mother Earth


Book Description

Literary critics have focused on the nexus between literature and the ecological environment. As a mirror of society, literature encapsulates the natural ecosystem to address environmental degradation as one of the major issues being confronted by communities the world over. Individual literary critics have demonstrated how literary writers have deliberately presented the impact of Mother Nature on the lives of characters. However, most critics have hardly demonstrated the essential role of the ecological environment on the political, social and religious attributes of human life.in Re-centring Mother Earth: Ecological Reading of Contemporary Works of Fiction, Andrew Nyongesa investigates the role of Mother Nature in the political, cultural, religious aspects of human life in contemporary novels. Using eco-criticism, the study challenges homocentric attributes of literature and shows how the ecological environment affects all facets of human life.




Parks and Recreation


Book Description

Pushcart Prize nominated Abigail George is a South African blogger at Goodreads, essayist, poet, playwright, short story writer and novelist. She briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. Her writing has appeared in many anthologies in South Africa and online in e-zines across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States.. She is the recipient of writing grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg, the Centre for the Book in Cape Town and ECPACC (Eastern Cape Provincial Arts and Culture Council) in East London.




Writing Woman Anthology


Book Description

The stars are in alignment. Her dramatists and scholars have spoken on the tapestry of these pages as a testament to the powers that be and the knowledge of the ancients. The language and the expertise involved will speak to your heart in praise of Africa. These word artists, these scholars and dramatists bring their life experience to the book, a noble kind of variety, an energy, their particular aura, the juxtaposition of the effervescent flux of ideas, ideals, innovation and ideology. The narrative in the essays and plays is based on reality and non-reality, the substance of dream killers in some very captivating and enticing lines, it is Africa’s time to shine. This volume is anchored to a dream, and tethered to a goal. Since ancient times there have been generational curses in the bloodline and strongholds that are determined not to let us go. Terrain that in a nutshell has been deposited in our genetic code, but now it is time for the divine awakening of our ancestors and for divine wisdom and new insights to prevail. We owe our ancestors that much. There is truth that speaks to power on these pages.




School Based HIV Education Affecting Girls in Selected Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa


Book Description

An in-depth, accessible study of school based intervention programs that affect girls in Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe, as a representative subset of Sub Saharan Africa. This book indulges in the reasons why HIV goals are lagging behind particularly with adolescent girls and young women. It tackles issues such as access to quality HIV education and delivery methods used by teachers. It discusses culture and religion as barriers to HIV education. It concludes by suggesting ways for a multi-sectoral approach and transformational change in order to reach the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the 90-90-90 targets.




Shades of Black


Book Description

The pastor preach, the congregates bleach....here the artist is called to question the essence of morality in the wake of moral decadence. When the people speak and the superiors they speak to, take a dive deep into the questionable pools, the people speak to question, here the artist is called to sing. When the sun denies us the lustre at anticipated times, when the moon submits to darkness before we see the road awaiting us...we paint the pictures to depict the terrain and ask a question or plenty. When the land we have cannot make a home for us.... Unfathomably so, everybody wants to know how i lost the brighter shades of my skin colour to the political machinations of the Addis Ababa parliament. Verily I say; those are the Shades of Black for you.