WINZ Newsletter, Issue No 29

BOOKS FOR ZIM SCHOOLS 

By WINZ Staff Writer

Win-Zimbabwe Director, Beaven Tapureta

An hour-long Win-Zimbabwe/Global Arts Trust book presentation function which was supposed to take place at Glen View 2 High this week has been deferred due to logistical hiccups beyond control.

The function had been coordinated to belatedly mark the annual International Day of the African Child, which falls on June 16. With the books, Win-Zimbabwe had aimed to provide reading pleasure to the youths so as to avoid cases of them dropping out of school to venture into crime and violence.

Win-Zimbabwe Director Beaven Tapureta said the deferment, decided between the school headmaster Mr. Masiwa and the Win-Zimbabwe/Global Arts partnership, is not likely to be forever as there is another opportunity to present the books during the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) in July.

“It remains our wish to reciprocate the support Glen View 2 High has given us. Anyway, a wish to pray is a prayer in itself, one day it will transform into performance. There is the Book Fair coming next month, which is almost the right place to exchange books and I think we will take advantage of that,” he said.

The books, mostly African titles sourced from individual writers Virginia Phiri and Beatrice Sithole, are expected to whet the reading and writing interest of the writers’ club members’. The books shall also add onto to the already existing list of African books in the school library.

Tapureta said his association has been inspired to open a mini-library at the office and is soliciting for book donations from individuals and organisations. The books will be donated to school writers’ clubs across the country to encourage the culture of reading African literature.

International Day of the African Child is a day set aside to commemorate lives of South African students who were massacred by police during apartheid era when they took to the streets to demand learning in their own language.

This year, the Day ran under the theme “All together for urgent actions in favour of street children”.

LITERARY DISCUSSION
‘THE STORY OF ZIMBABWE INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR’

The Book Café, Fife Ave, Harare

Thursday 07 July, 2011

5.30-7pm

In July, Zimbabwe celebrates the biggest annual showcase of literary events through the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF). Since the first ZIBF in 1983, the event has grown in leaps and bounds making it a major force in the development of Zimbabwean literature.

On July 07, the early evening Book Cafe literary discussion will look at ‘The Story of Zimbabwe International Book Fair’ discussing how the ZIBF began and explore its success and challenges.

There is no doubt that such platforms have had a great impact to those who love literature and advocate for its development.

The history of the ZIBF has an important bearing to the lives of many and to some it has been a very emotional experience. The discussion will present an opportunity for educating and informing those who are not aware of its history and importance.

Please put the date in your diary and we hope to see you then.

By Extra-Blessings Kuchera
Pamberi Trust
www.zimbabwearts.org,
Personal-0773 838 488

THE REGULAR WRITER

With

Tinashe ‘Mutumwapavi’ Muchuri

ALL CHILDREN ARE VULNERABLE AND COULD BE CANDIDATES FOR STREET LIFE

In commemoration of International Day of the African Child

Where Punha (not her real name) comes from there are no streets as we know them today in the city. There are no storm drains to hide and sleep in. There are no cars to guard to earn dollars. There are no alleys to light fires during the cold nights. Where then would she escape from the abuses at home?

In the village there are no avenues that one could safely follow to get some help. Villagers urge her to keep silent and move on with the abusing uncle or aunt. They would tell her that it is better to endure the suffering at the hands of relatives than at the hands of unknown people.

She is told that those who endure the pain of abuse would be blessed in the future. She is told that to be beaten up by a relative is to be loved. To be abused is to be cared for. The parent who doesn’t beat a child doesn’t love and care for him. Then if Punha tells her mother that her father have abused her, she is beaten up for lying. No one would listen to her. 

But then, even bigger girls are forced to live with a man who would have raped them. The elders argue that no one marries an abused girl. So the abuser is asked to pay lobola for his victim. 

There is nowhere to run for Punha. 

There are many unknown cases of abuse in modern day rural Africa, cases that have left dreams of the new generation devastated. Punha’s dream, to be someone in life, is thrashed. Wouldn’t it be wise to remember the rural girl child as we celebrate the brevity of their South African counterparts who perished for fighting for their rights?

Surely, until we meet again, let’s think about it.

TYPES OF VOICE & EXAMPLES

[Source: Hardy Griffin: “Voice: The Sound of a Story”]

Conversational:  the narrator has a casual conversation with the reader. Example:  “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth mainly. There was things which he stretched but mainly he told the truth.” [Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]

This voice is personable, sarcastic, and is almost always in the first person POV employing colloquialism and slang. It is a great way to show the narrator’s personality, although the writer still needs to control the details given.

Informal Voice:  the narrator used casual, everyday language but isn’t personality-heavy as the conversational. An example is the narrator of “Cathedral”: 

“I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled. I thought I knew that much and that much only about the blind people. But this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one.”

The third person POV can employ this voice, but remains close to mind of the focus character. The Informal Voice is middle of the road. It is the most commonly used in contemporary fiction (it doesn’t get too personal, yet it is not too formal)

Formal: lacks the chattiness or spoken-story quality of the conversational and informal. It is detached from the characters, observational. Suitable for third person POV, although it can work in formal first person POV 

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them, it was necessary to point.  [One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez]

The bugle call shatters the stillness of the shrine. Its familiar but haunting melancholy cannot fail to move. Even the President seems misty-eyed behind his glasses. Close to him in the widow’s place of honour, I am aware of his every movement. I watch him without moving my eyes. Perhaps it is not mist in his eyes but the film of my own sudden tears. The badges sprinkled on his sash office shimmer and recede against the green of the material. [“The Sound of the Last Post”, Petina Gappah]

Ceremonial Voice:  picture a tux-wearing master of ceremony, an Abe Lincoln, a Thomas Jefferson, or MLK of a narrator. A Nelson Mandela. You see this one in Dickens and other classics, although it appears in some contemporary writing: 

Oliver Twist’s ninth birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small circumference. But nature or inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver’s breast: it had had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment; and perhaps to the circumstance may be attributed his having any ninth birthday at all. [Oliver Twist].

This voice is rarely in the first person POV it slows the reader down, giving a great sense of occasion and importance to the story. 

Note: the above are arbitrary categories and do not cover all the voice possibilities. Your own voice will come from practice. Don’t force it. You can help it by reading your stories aloud.

Announcement

Online poetry workshop has been extended and will now run until end of July. Join us!