EDITORIAL
On behalf of our Board, greetings to you Zimbabwean writers. WIN-Zimbabwe is proud of all our writers who represent Zimbabwe in the international arena. This edition celebrates a female and male artist, young and seasoned respectively, but both working to promote our cultural perception of life and hope to heal the world in the process. May l take this opportunity to encourage you all to keep writing and participating in various fora. The Intwasa writing competition has the deadline of the 15th of July. The Amabooks Songwriting Competition is still on. So is our online poetry workshop. The ZIBF Indaba is from the 25th of July, contact ZIBF offices for registration before 20 July. There is the Chimanimani Arts Festival running from August 12 - 14. Thank you for supporting WIN-Zimbabwe. It is your organization. Pasina imi hapana isu. Without you we do not exist. Remember writers grow by reading widely! (Josephine Muganiwa, WIN-Zimbabwe Board Chairperson)
CONGRATS! CONGRATS! CONGRATS!
Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo (pictured above/photo courtesy of caineprize.com) has done us proud; she brings home the 12th Caine Prize for African Writing. Below is an article published in the Newsday, July 13, 2011.
Oxford: - Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo has won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa’s leading literary award, for her short story entitled Hitting Budapest, from The Boston Review, Vol 35, No 6 – Nov/Dec 2010.
The chair of the judges, award winning author Hisham Matar, announced NoViolet Bulawayo as the winner of the 10 000 pounds prize at a dinner held on Monday 11 July at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Hisham Matar said: “The language of Hitting Budapest crackles. Here we encounter Darling, Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Stina, and Sbho, a gang reminiscent of Clockwise Orange. But these are children, poor and violated and hungry. This is a story with moral power and weight; it has the artistry to refrain from moral commentary. NoViolet Bulawayo is a writer who takes delight in language.”
NoViolet Bulawayo was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She recently completed her Master’s in Fine Arts at Cornell University, in the US, where she is now a Truman Capote Fellow and lecturer of English.
Another of her stories, Snapshots, was shortlisted for the 2009 SA PEN/Studzinski Literary Award. NoViolet has recently completed a novel manuscript tentatively titled We Need New Names, and has begun work on a memoir project. – Book.co.za
NEWSLETTER ISSUE NO 11 AN UNBEATABLE POST
By WINZ Staff Writer
The late Julius Sekai Chingono on the front cover of Warwick Review
Call this article a kind of blog reader analysis, no problem. Blog readers are creditable for the greatness of any blog and what you read on this blog tells a story on how much variety of articles the blog carries.
No doubt that WINZ Newsletter, Issue No 11 is an unbeatable post on this blog and the reasons behind this remain with the blog readers.
This 11th issue, posted exactly on February 7 2011, a month after Julius Chingono passed on, has all-time 439 page views, followed by the Writers End of Year Get Together in Pictures which has a total of all-time 194 page views.
The difference poses a yawning margin that will take long to beat.
The newsletter features a review of an international journal (The Warwick Review) of December 2009 done by Beaven Tapureta (we call him Bev), a poem by Courage Muganji titled ‘I long for the Moment’ and a brief notice from Munyori Poetry Journal announcing its 2011 issue.
The journal cover has a colour portrait of the late Julius Chingono who is one of the eleven Zimbabwean writers featured in this journal.
This is a journal of stars!
An interesting observation is that the 2011 Caine Prize winner, NoViolet Mkha Bulawayo, is also featured in the journal.
John Eppel, whose latest collaborative book is called Together, is also featured in this journal. Together is a collaborative work featuring John Eppel and the late Chingono. This book (Together), which has been posthumously published in the case of Chingono, received rave reviews and a colourful launch.
Suffice it to say then that this Newsletter, No 11, is but one of our posts which have echoed through the walls of our quest as the WINZ Newsletter team to provide the best of our mettle insofar as relevance is concerned.
THE REGULAR WRITER
With
Tinashe 'Mutumwapavi' Muchuri
'Mambo' or 'Chief'
Walter Lambert Dehwe Muparutsa
When Writers International Network Zimbabwe (Win-Zimbabwe) partnered Global Arts Trust in April this year it was good news to the writers’ association as well as a demonstration of the networking that should happen in the arts industry.
Today, I take pleasure in profiling the man whose artistic career spans more than forty years, the man who understands that artists are ‘surgeons of the society’.
Young artists call him ‘mambo’ or ‘chief’, partly because he is a descendant of the Mutasa dynasty and partly because he is a ‘guru’ in the arts industry.
Walter Lambert Muparutsa, Global Arts Trust Director, is a playwright/script developer, director, producer, promoter, a consultant and talented actor (Radio, Television, Theatre, and Film).
His career started in 1963 when he joined the then Rhodesia Literature Bureau as reader, rising to the position of an editorial officer (Shona Language Section). He was responsible, among other things, for the writers’ workshops and seminars, reading and selecting publishable Shona and English manuscripts written by local writers. Muparutsa was very much involved in poetry radio sessions. He also wrote book reviews. During this period Muparutsa presented a radio programme called ‘Learning Does Not End (Kudzidza Hakuperi)’.
Two years after joining the Rhodesia Literature Bureau, his love for theatre saw him found the Chiedza Drama Group in Mbare (Harare) high density township. He later founded and chaired the Anglican Young Peoples’ Association at St Michaels in Mbare, which staged religious plays. Muparutsa became so busy with adapting plays from Shona novels, writing scripts, rehearsing, directing and touring with his plays around greater Harare. During the same period he worked with Jesuits at Silveirra House in Chishawasha where he met other actors such as Dominic Kanaventi. He conducted workshops on writing, radio acting and theatre. It was from these workshops that the Mabvuku Catholic Youth Drama Club was formed.
His first professional performance was at Sundown Theatre, a professional theatre group under the leadership of John Haig at Prince Edward, where he starred in Wole Soyinka’s famous play, Kongi’s Harvest, in 1975.
Thirteen years later he became the first black person to win Best Actor award in the National Winter Fest Theatre Festival for his role in Athol Fugard’s play Nongogo. The adjudication was done by a Royal Arts Dramatic Association (RADA) representative from the United Kingdom.
Three years into independent Zimbabwe, he shared the award with his partner Dominic Kanaventi for their roles in Andrew Whaley’s play Platform Five (a Zimbabwe Arts Productions play).
Thirteen years later he became the first black person to win Best Actor award in the National Winter Fest Theatre Festival for his role in Athol Fugard’s play Nongogo. The adjudication was done by a Royal Arts Dramatic Association (RADA) representative from the United Kingdom.
Three years into independent Zimbabwe, he shared the award with his partner Dominic Kanaventi for their roles in Andrew Whaley’s play Platform Five (a Zimbabwe Arts Productions play).
In 1987, he became an adjudicator for the National Winter Fest High School Theatre Festival. Eleven years later he became the coordinator for the national theatre programme of the project Artists Against Aids: Theatre and Music, under Rooftop Promotions.
In 1991 he acted in a British television series, Peak Practice, which launched him into more films and television dramas such as An African called Cinema, Cry Freedom a film in memory of South African human rights guru Steve Biko, Everyone’s child and Yellow Card, among others.
In 2002, he won the Best Actor and Best Script award at the National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) for “Rags & Garbages” written by Raisedon Baya, of which Muparutsa generated the concept ant the storyline.
Two years later, he scooped the Best Director Award at NAMA Awards for the Stephen Chifunyise play, “Wedding Night’. The play scooped Best Actor and Best Production awards.
He was the director and one of the writers for the 104 episodes of Mopani Junction, a serial radio drama by Media for Development (MFD). His bag of awards was blessed with the Silver Jubilee Award (NAMA) in the Theatre category when the country celebrated artists who had made a mark in the local arts industry during the twenty five years after independence. He was given this recognition for the role he played in uplifting theatre in Zimbabwe.
In 1991 he acted in a British television series, Peak Practice, which launched him into more films and television dramas such as An African called Cinema, Cry Freedom a film in memory of South African human rights guru Steve Biko, Everyone’s child and Yellow Card, among others.
In 2002, he won the Best Actor and Best Script award at the National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) for “Rags & Garbages” written by Raisedon Baya, of which Muparutsa generated the concept ant the storyline.
Two years later, he scooped the Best Director Award at NAMA Awards for the Stephen Chifunyise play, “Wedding Night’. The play scooped Best Actor and Best Production awards.
He was the director and one of the writers for the 104 episodes of Mopani Junction, a serial radio drama by Media for Development (MFD). His bag of awards was blessed with the Silver Jubilee Award (NAMA) in the Theatre category when the country celebrated artists who had made a mark in the local arts industry during the twenty five years after independence. He was given this recognition for the role he played in uplifting theatre in Zimbabwe.
In his quest to achieve meaningful theatre growth in the country, he was instrumental in the formation of Zimbabwe Theatre Association (ZiTA) in 2008, a theatre organization with a mission to inspire innovative, high quality theatre experiences for youths, adults and artists to effect economic, social and spiritual growth for personal and common good.
In 2002 he founded Global Arts Trust, an arts consultancy agency which works with arts practitioners in developing the arts in the country. The Trust is involved mainly in theatre and radio programmes, assessing and editing theatre and film scripts, and casting. Muparutsa’s fruits are seen through the youths he worked with who today own arts production companies. He inspired many a people into venturing into the arts sector and many of them have their own success stories.
His commitment to the arts has seen him being a consultant for Harare International Festival of the Arts, Chimanimani Arts Festival, Dzimbahwe Arts Festival, Manica Arts Festival, and Media for Development International Inc (Colorado, USA) for the production of a Ugandan radio serial drama. He has also done the casting for the Zimbabwe International Film Festival (ZIFF) short film project.
With all this experience and love for the arts, Muparutsa stand out as an arts veteran whose vision is positively benefiting his local talent.
His acumen was demonstrated when he took part in the futuristic play called Ten Years from Now which ran at the Theatre in the Park few weeks ago. The play was co-written by veteran playwright Stephen Chifunyise and Raisedon Baya.
Just as Win-Zimbabwe stands for the concept of networking, the association surely achieved a great deal in finding Muparutsa as its partner, for such wisdom in him can be used to good use.
POETRY
The Sun Shines Yet…
As the early morning sun rises
Glowing with its heavenly splendour
Its exquisite scar-less beauty
Shining on earth’s beautiful face
With that cool penetrating gentle breeze
Rustling through the luxuriant forest
All gay, wonderful and at ease
Yet on such a day
Mudhara remains so gloomy
The cloud of depression hangs over his brow
Why he is so depressed, we wonder
On his face agony and grief is shown
Strain and worry so easily detectable
His fleshy cheeks have sunken inside
Leaving a bony framework of his face
Far and yonder his only herd of cattle
Lumber with a trail of death
Soon to collapse and die
In the dry grass
I will console Mudhara
Hoping for his happiness to come back
c. Hosea Tokwe (pictured, 2011)
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