EDITORIAL
Baby Dambudzo
Welcome
to our June issue of the Win Newsletter.
June 4,
2019, was the late Dambudzo Marechera’s 67th birthday anniversary. We
continue to remember and celebrate one of Zimbabwe’s remarkable writers who
were born to the world, for the world, to give voice to the voiceless. “I am against everything/ against war and
those against/ war. Against whatever diminishes/th’ individual’s blind impulse”
is one of Marechera’s most quoted pieces. There was a quest in him for
freedom of the mind, a plea to the world to respect the writer as a
professional worker. One occasionally comes across the isolated
writer-character in some urban-set pieces in the posthumous publication Scrapiron Blues (1992, Africa World
Press). Even today, three decades after his death, the full-time writer is yet
to be respected or accepted in our society. In this issue, we publish the last
part of Freedom Gengezha’s article and he makes a reference to this aspect of
the neglected writer. And we welcome back Muchuri the storyteller with his
column Ngatinyorei. Enjoy!
ANOTHER BOOST FOR THE HARARE CITY LIBRARY
Mr. Takwana Masunda, HCL Assistant
Librarian shows some of the books recently received from the Embassy of Brazil
in Zimbabwe
Many of the books donated were in
Portuguese language, making it a beautiful cultural exchange
INVITATION TO A POETRY WORKSHOP
BOOK REVIEW
By
Beaven Tapureta
Novel Honors Loving Spirit of Missionary John
Bradburne
Olivia Christian Paarsche, author of ‘The
Next Of Kin’
The Next Of Kin
(Second Edition, 2018, Reach Publishers, South Africa), written by
Zimbabwe-born author Olivia Christian Paasche, is a highly spiritual novel,
that is, with its engrossment with events happening in a pattern beyond
ordinary human understanding, it appeals to the spirit.
The
novel is a celebration of John Bradburne, a popular missionary and martyr who
long ago harbored so much love for the lepers at Mutemwa, in Zimbabwe. His life
story provides the essential background to The
Next Of Kin, which is an enjoyable, uplifting five-part novel with love
tucked at its centre of narration. The tale carries in its flow God’s care for
His people and the reason why he sends ambassadors to represent His love in the
whole world.
‘Part
One’ takes place in Rome, with primary focus on the ordination of Angelo, the
main character, and the unfortunate event that follows. It is this unfortunate
event and others that herald Angelo’s continued search for Truth, even when he
comes to Africa.
Although
the Roman Catholic tradition is apparent, so motivating is the story. Some
people, because of their innocent nature and submission to God's will in their
lives, are blessed or privileged spiritually to converse with God. They hear
the call of God, and follow it.
Angelo,
who is so deeply inspired by John Bradburne to whom the novel is dedicated, is
one such person who devoted his life to God from a tender age when he decided
he would be a priest.
Yet
trials and tribulations haunt him from the day of his ordination and in his
missionary work in Mozambique, Africa, up to the end. He makes a decision today
and soon afterwards, the spirit of God responds in very revealing visions or
dreams either to remind him if he has made a wrong choice or a right move.
This is
very well illustrated in ‘Part Three’ of the novel when Angelo is brought to
Zimbabwe's St Michael's Hospital, half-dead. Having recuperated some days
later, Angelo decides, perhaps for the umpteenth time, to give up his
priesthood and marry Nicole; so drawn to her he is, and she too could not
resist the power of love blooming between them. Nicole, loving and kind, is the
embodiment of “the girl with a white rose” he had been seeing in most of his
dreams. The novel is in some other ways about spiritual struggle and ultimate
victory. In the choices we make, God is speaking through various ways.
The
tale moves with a flowing, musical, dreamy style. The language of a gifted
storyteller does not let you put the book down. In The Next Of Kin, it is musical, simple but deeply captivating,
especially when the author describes the correspondence between the landscape
or nature and the ‘human drama’ with such vividness, such beauty.
That
the novel needed this updated edition is no doubt a successful decision the
author made. The reader can feel the inspirational story of John Bradburne, who
cared for the lepers in Mutemwa and was subsequently martyred. ‘Part Two’ of
the novel, happening seven years after Angelo becomes an ordained priest and
has been in Africa as a missionary, does bring Bradburne alive through the
characters’ conversations especially when Angelo is admitted at St. Michael's Hospital
(Zimbabwe).
“He was
a dear friend, mystic and prophet, poet and talented musician,” a nurse tells
Angelo.
Missionary
work in African countries faced cultural and various kinds of resistance in its
initial stages until it began to be accepted. Bradburne lived through those
hard times, fighting and eventually dying for the lepers who were his best
friends. Likewise, Angelo finds himself ‘at the heart of the jungle’, fighting
for the poor, enduring the bad winds of resistance, illness, etc. In the middle
of all this, love blooms.
‘Part
Three’, happening 14 years later in Mozambique, is a sad. But no matter how sad
the story continues to drift in ‘Part Four’, the reader is comforted in ‘Part
Five’ by the gripping letters Angelo wrote and never delivered to Nicole who
only gets them later from Carlos, a close friend of Angelo. The enlightenment
after reading the novel, that Nicole is but ‘the next of kin of the world’,
that love triumphs, is indeed comforting.
According
to writer Olivia, the novel was born out of a promise she made to Bradburne's
friend, biographer and priest Father John Dove who died in Zimbabwe in 2014.
She promised Fr Dove who was also very much involved in the leprosy centre in
Mutemwa, that she would spread the word about Bradburne.
But
thirteen years passed and something happened that reminded her of her promise.
"Interestingly,
after 13 years, one day a picture fell from my wardrobe and landed face up in
my hands! And who says the dead don't speak! So as you can imagine I was quite
shaken. The cause of Bradburne's beatification is quite strong in the Vatican.
There is quite a lot of excitement, even anticipation that if the cause for his
sainthood goes through, Pope Francis will visit Zimbabwe," said Olivia.
The
novel is indeed part of her spiritual life's story. Telling by her extensive
nursing background, the reader could see her in the character Nicole – an
incarnation of loving kindness, proud of her Zulu and Scottish roots.
Born in
Zimbabwe, Olivia went to Moffat Primary and did her secondary education at
Morgan High School. She trained as a nurse at the Parirenyatwa Hospital where
she won several nursing awards. She was also a fashion model, featuring in
magazines and was a familiar face on the advertising billboards.
Olivia
travels extensively on pilgrimages to sacred places. Recently, she has been to
Croatia on one such pilgrimage. The mother of five, blessed with three
grandsons, says her passion is art and spending time outdoors with nature. She
lives with her family in London where she works as a part-time nurse and
wherever she is, she utilizes her nursing skills to assist the disabled.
NATIONAL PRIZE FOR YOUNG WRITERS LAUNCHED
Poet Philani Nyoni, who is administering the Prize
A new
national writing prize that will promote female budding writers in high schools
has
been launched
For
contest guidelines and more information, contact:
THE
YOUTH PERSPECTIVE
With
Mimi Machakaire
“I Still Appreciate The Smell Of New Ink
And Fresh Pages”
We are
living in the digital era where everything can be accessed via the internet.
Whatever inquiry into any topic, one can always find it through a simple URL
search on the world wide web. this means that all novels, short stories, poetry
and scripts can be downloaded with a simple click of a button.
So what
happened to the luxury of going to an actual bookstore and buying a paperback
book from the new releases aisle, finally getting the book after months of
anticipation from the day the author announced his/her latest works? Not only
that, but where are the days of just stumbling on new books from Steven King
(or local writers), knowing that he has been quietly writing from his home and
thus gifting the world with his genius?
The sad
part now is that hardly anyone likes to collect novels anymore. In this
millennial time, where we find books online, suddenly there is no time to look
for a paperback, to buy it, and then read it. It is almost as if we have
forgotten what our authors gave us from the very beginning. Words written with
ink on pages, to create one big story and then stitched together, fashioning
what we now know as books.
I still
appreciate the smell of new ink and fresh pages, the feel of a novel in my
hands as I pack it with me on a journey to a new country. In a plane, a car or
a bus, wherever the wind takes me, if you look closely, you will find a novel
of some kind, from the fantasy world, or literary worlds, sitting in my
rucksack.
However,
with these new age electronic books, there is no emotion because you are
holding onto cold technology. There is no connection, no warning, that you are
about to sink into a different world. Whereas, when you opened a thick, hard
cover novel, you could sense that you are no longer living in your own reality
but that you are now entering someone else’s imagination.
These
new age books called PDFs or e-Books, while they offer some benefits, like leisure
reading for the working class human, it is not wise to stare at a glass monitor
for long hours at a time. Doing so can actually damage the eyes or develop
unwanted headaches.
Many
people do not realize that the longer you stare at a bright screen, without taking breaks, the more it can lead to difficulty in
focusing, eye discomfort,
blurred vision, dry eyes,
and itchy eyes. This happens because looking at a screen for extended periods of
time causes you to
blink less, which deprives your
eyes of moisture, that is why scientists suggests it is wiser to
take a break after every 20 minutes to avoid long term problems with one’s
eyesight and overall senses.
It is thus healthy to opt to read from paperback stories
rather than from electronic books. Whether
you are reading, 30 minutes or two hours each day, the key is to get some
(book) reading in every single day. The benefits are well
documented and are known to improving both intelligence and emotional IQ and
will further reduce one’s stress levels. In other words, there are more
benefits to one’s overall health taken from reading paperback stories than
there is from using e-Books or PDF files.
Therefore, I have to ask: why are people running away from
all these health benefits and choosing to damage their eyesight, among other
things instead?
While books are heavier to pack or carry around and using a
tablet device or a phone is lighter for convenience, it still does not change
the fact that one’s health is more at risk using technology, than that of
paperback stories.
Children of today need to see
the children of yesterday, still enjoying the touch and feel of a novel as it
will encourage them to learn more about sentence structure, theme, character
development and paragraphs because the longer they read the more it is going to
improve their vocabulary, enhance their memory skills and develop their mental
stimulation.
Recent studies have shown that
through reading paperback stories, this can help your mental stability stay
stimulated and can further slow the progress of
(or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia, since keeping your brain
active and engaged prevents it from losing power. Just like any other muscle in
the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy, so the
phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly relevant when it comes to your mind.
The same analysis goes for
those who are still active in doing puzzles and playing
games such as chess, which is helpful with cognitive stimulation.
While it is understandable that
it is hard to get into the habit of reading paperback stories everywhere, we go
but for the sake of our mental health and keeping our traditions intact, I say
we should not forget where all these stories once originated.
We once had a childhood filled
with borrowing books from huge libraries with our very own library card that
had our names on it. These were buildings, which stored rows and rows of
knowledge and that which also fed us stories from beyond the world of
television and electronic devices. The joys of finding your favorite stories or
encyclopedias sitting in a sea of books in a store or a library is still there,
all we need to do is just search for the books that will help us feel that joy
again.
NGATINYOREI
Na Tinashe
Muchuri
Joyous memories:
Muchuri dancing to sweet mbira vibes issuing from an Epworth-based mbira group
at the ‘Win 2011 Writers End of Year Get-Together’ held at the Book Café,
Harare.
Tigashire
vanyori nevaravi vanodiwa muchikamu chino cheNgatinyorei naTinashe Muchuri, tiri muno mudariro ratapiwa kuti
titandare pamwe chete neveboka revanyori veWriters International Network
Zimbabwe.
Muchikamu
chino icho chichange chichibuda mugwarodandetande reWinZim tichange
tichitandara mumwe musi iri hurukuro nemunyori, kana munyori wenziyo anozonzi
muimbi kana munyori wenyaya nemuvezi wemitambo, kana kuti munyori wemitambo
yemudariro kana mafirimu, uye muverengi uyo akanakidzwa nezvinyorwa zvevanyori
zvinotapira. Chinangwa cheNgatinyorei
ndechekuvandudza pfungwa, kunyandura pfungwa, kutandadza pfungwa, kutsiura
pfungwa, kusimbisa nekusimudzira pfungwa nekudzisekesa pamwe nekudzisekenyedza.
Dariro
rino nderedu tese vanyori nevaverengi. Zvichida mangwana ndiwe unenge uri
vavariro yechikamu chino, saka huyai mese titandare muno tichizevezerana,
tichiimba, tichiseka, tichisekenyedzana, tichivaraidzana, tichinakidzana,
tichivindurana, tisingatyi kana kusvoda zvedu mudariro rino ratapiwa kuti
tivandudzane maonero, mafungiro, maitiro nemanyorero.
Ngatinyorei Hapana Chinotimisa Tinokunda
Zvino
muchikamu chino chinova chekuvamba tati regai tivambire kutandara nevanyori
vanonyora vari kumaruwa takangana nematambudziko avanosangana nawo. Semunyori
uye mupepepti wezvinyorwa zveChiShona ndatandara navanyori vakawanda vanonyora
vari kumaruwa. Nerimwe gore ndakabatsira muhurongwa hweBhabhu Books
hwekuunganidza zvinyorwa zvenyaya pfupi dzakazoumba muunganidzwa wenyaya pfupi
unodaidzwa kunzi Makore Asina Mvura.
Ndakatandarawo nevanyori vanonyora vari kumaruwa mukupepeta zvinyorwa zvavo
senzira yekuti zviwane kukwenenzvereka kuti zvitsikiswe zviwane kusvika
kumarudzi ose epasi rino.
Nguva
zhinji panoverengwa zvinyorwa tinoona kuti zvinokoshesa kutaurwa kweupenyu
hwemumaguta. Upenyu hwemumaguta hunenge ndihwo hwakakosha kupfuvura
hwekumamana. Hupenyu hwekumamana hunoratidzwa sehwakasarira sure zvikuru.
Zvinonzi munhu anonyora zvakanakisa kana achinangana nekunyora izvo zvinhu
zvaanozivisisa kana zvinhu zviri pedyo pedyo naye zvakanyanya. Izvo zvinobva
zvawirirana nechinangwa chechinyorwa chino chinova chekukurudzira vanyori
vekumamana kuti vasimbise upenyu, magariro, zviitiko zveko izvo zvinozoita kuti
kana nevanhu vari mumaguta vazivewo zviitiko zveupenyu hwekumamana. Zvinganaka
sei kuona bhuku rinotangira kwaGutu saRevai
rakanyorwa naRopofadzo Mupunga richitiratidza kusimuka kunoita mweya
yavakafa vachirwira vapenyu vavakasiya, ko idzo nyaya dzefungidziro yehuroyi,
ko iyo nyaya dzematubura anonzi arura kumamamana achitora mhumba dzevanhu
kuendesa Joni uko matubura anozodzoka ava nedzimotokari dzinotakurisa vanhu
dzerudzi rwemakombi?
Varavi
vobvunza kuti ingava sakiso here mabhazi nemakombi achisakisa njodzi zhinji
mumigwagwa dzinoteura ropa rakawanda? Kuti idi here kana kungokonewa
kwevachairi verudzi rwezvitakuravanhu urwu?
Kana
kusangana nenovhero rakaita saPaakabva
Parefu rakanyorwa naModern Tavarwisa, mudzidzisi kumana rekwaNembudziya,
iro rinobata nyaya yemukondombera weHIV neAIDS wazezesa vanhu pasi rino
richitseketudza nyaya dzedambudziko iri zvichifambirana nemukore uno wemakereke
eminana ekuti zvirwere zvinorapwa neminana, upfumi hunounganidzika neminana,
mhuri dzinoumbwa neminana, mabhizimisi anoitika neminana, richiuya nemubvunzo
wekuti zvine chokwadi here? Iwo mukondombera unoparadzwa neminana here? Ko,
vawanani vakave mumwe ane mukondombera mumwe asina zvinoraramika sei?
Ndaimbokurukura
naJohannes Mupisa akanyora Shukukuviri
inova nyaya ine chekuita nezvemaporofita, minana, mashiripiti, midzi nemweya
yengozi maererano nekunyora nyaya refu ingazova iya inonzi
nyayanyorwa/nganonyorwa kana kuti novhero kuti munhu anofanira kurangarira
nguva dzese kuti paanenge achinyora pamusoro pezvimwe zvinhu zvinoitika kana
imwe tsika yekumana kwake neverudzi rwake anyatsotsetsenura zvinogutsa,
zvinoita kuti kana zviya vanhu vasingazive nezveupenyu hwekuMwenezi kwaanobva
vazive kuti iyo Mwenezi idunhu rakamboita sei, rine vanhu vakamboita sei,
vanorarama sei. Zvinofadza kunzwa kuti novhero rake ririkutevera anenge
achikurukura naSekuru vake Jandura maererano neupenyu hwemumana make.
(To
be continued in the next newsletter…)
CHILDREN LITERATURE CORNER
With
Aleck
Kaposa
Let There Be Reading: A Case For Story
Books
Children
must be introduced to reading books from the earliest age possible. Once the
children are hooked to books, they will not depart from them when they grow up.
Fortunately today, there are all sorts of reading materials which are readily
and cheaply available to cater for all ages in both hard and soft copy formats.
However due care must be taken to ensure that only suitable, age-appropriate
reading materials are availed to the children as they embark on the life-long
reading journey.
Reasons for reading
There
are many reasons why it is critical for children to read books and other
reading materials from an early age. Here we look at only four. All children
must be encouraged and guided to read books for the following reasons, among
many others.
Reading for enjoyment or for leisure
Firstly
children need to be encouraged to read books for enjoyment or for leisure. This
opens their young and fertile minds to endless possibilities and serves as a
seed to stimulate creativity in different endeavors. Every child should be
given a challenge to read a certain number of books for a given period, say
three or four books per month. The same should be encouraged to love and care
for the books and to develop an intimate relationship with them. This is where
the hard copy comes in handy and advantageous over the soft copy.
Reading for academic purposes
Secondly
children read books for academic purposes, to prepare for their academic
courses and examinations. If they are already used to reading books from an
early age, they will not find this cumbersome or boring. Reading for personal development Another
reason is that children, like adults, should be encouraged to read books for
personal development. The conventional diploma or degree programmes offered by
tertiary institutions do not necessarily cover everything one needs in life. A
great deal of tips on how to do this or that comes from books not prescribed
for any particular curriculum. The internet is awash with personal development
tips, some of which stuff is pretty useful. A child can read books in order to
develop in areas such as English spelling and grammar and composition.
Reading to assist others
Yet
another reason children should read books is for them to be able to assist
their struggling peers at home and at school. Children who read are mostly
ahead of their peers academically. These able readers can assist their peers
who do not read. This in turn builds a strong bond and friendship between the
helper and the helped.
What books to read?
Children
in Zimbabwe must be encouraged to read books from their home country before
they venture to books from other African countries as well as Europe and
America. Local children should not shun books written by local authors as these
reflect the society in which they live. Local books are a repository for local
culture and customs. Buying and reading original, local books as opposed to
badly visible and badly bound, illegally photocopied books helps the local
economy as it creates employment for the author, the printer, the publisher and
the bookseller, not to mention the paper and ink supplier. Buying and reading
mainly or only foreign books is not only detrimental to the local economy but
tends to give the young readers an outlook that is foreign as far as real life
is concerned. This may cause the children to end up shunning or looking down
upon their own literature while appreciating that which is foreign. There are
several good, new books for children today in this country. However, the
creative writer today should do more to satisfy this huge market for books out
there. There should be plenty of picture as well as other reading books,
creatively written for children of all levels, books that reflect who we are,
the way we live as well as our aspirations. Educators should not just be
purveyors of educational content found in reading books created by others but
should themselves be creators of new, exciting and original books for children.
Stakeholders in the reading matrix
In
order to build a lasting reading culture in today’s children whose life is more
than cluttered with entertainment and social media, all the stakeholders in the
reading books matrix should play their part. These are government, which
provides an enabling environment, the writer who writes the right reading book,
the publisher who publishes the book, the parent or school that buys the book
and the learner willing to read the book and derive all the benefits associated
with reading. That recipe will surely revive and strongly establish a lasting
and lifelong reading culture in children.
BOOK REVIEW
By
Beaven Tapureta
When Family Means Sorrow
Ashley Ropafadzo Tome, author
In the
dramatic novel ‘Knell. Ashes. Seppuku’
(2018, Langaa Research and Publishing, Cameroon) by 22-year old Ashley R Tome,
one gets the feeling that what others call family is to some nothing but an
entrapment from which they are continuously trying to free themselves.
In one
family, a couple are desperate to bear children, in another mother and son are
at crossroads, yet in another a sister revenges against rapist brother, and all the drama is captured in fifteen
chapters of brief, interlocking scenes of conflict.
What
Tome has provided in fiction, others have provided in motivational writing,
that is, the subject of the modern family and /or extended family and human
behaviour. From the beginning, the reader notes in the novel the clash between
the present and the past, notes how gradually the situation becomes
uncontrollable as family secrets are revealed and others covered up but not for
long.
Cephas,
a young man, is the center of attention. To him family means a daily
shouting-match with his mother Margaret, and home is home only if he could
incessantly obtain his mother’s money and car, and nothing close to human
compassion. His membership to a criminal gang is clearly a psychological make
up for the absence of family love.
Yet,
like other young people in the novel except a few who innocently pursue their
dreams, Cephas is the embodiment of ‘pay-back time’ for the adults or parents
whose sins can no more remain covered in secrecy.
In ‘Knell. Ashes. Seppuku’, parents fail
their children by letting the past overhang unresolved or rather, un-forgiven.
The author, through an episodic unraveling of events, portrays this cruel split
of generations.
Margaret
cheated her late husband and her punishment seems to have come in the form of a
rebellious son and her death. Elvis Jones, another parent in the story, raped
his sister Erica in the past and his punishment is double-folded, that is, a
gangster-son born from the rape and his (Elvis’) death.
Erica
sums it up when she says in a certain scene, “A bad past should be burned to
ashes my dear. It is not meant to live…but to die.”
The
metaphors of ashes, the knell, and the Japanese seppuku, are very well played
around with in the novel. In fact, the compound emotion which the reader is
immersed in while reading the novel is that of “the absence of laughter”.
Nihilistic could be too extreme a word to describe the mood in Tome’s debut
novel.
Where
hope and innocence exists, it is crushed as, for instance, we see another young
character Tinashe, a relative of Margaret, humble and ambitious, gets
imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Tinashe is naturally the kind of son
every parent would be proud to have.
Not
only do the adults harbor secrets or have dark pasts affecting their children,
but also at some point, their way of handling issues is put under the
microscope. For example, Tome shows us how much a parent’s absurd behaviour
bears on the happiness of others.
Nomagugu
is Nyasha’s mother. Nyasha and his wife Charity long to have a child of their
own. Although Nyasha and Charity have backgrounds they are not open about to
each other for some time, not having a child is seen from a cultural
perspective by Nomagugu. It is not bad to consider culture in marital issues,
but how Nomagugu handles it in the story is questionable.
Imagine
your mother popping up in the morning with a sixteen year old girl from the
village for you to marry. Your mother pushes your wife and when you try to
condemn your mother’s manners, she says to you, “Heede! You call that a wife, she is not a wife, that woman is a man
my son. Look at her womb, it’s stuck inside kuita
kunge kamwana keku (…) karohwa nenzara. Do you know the pain and
humiliation that I am going through Nyasha because of this faggot you call a
wife? …”
In ‘Knell. Ashes. Seppuku’, Ashley Tome displays
her talent in weaving together a thriller-paced story with characters embodying
different themes in a world of broken family and relationships. Notwithstanding
the missing letters in some words so visible in the last chapters, this book is
one of the ‘unputdownable’ works of fiction being issued by the emerging
generation of Zimbabwean writers.
Born in
1997 in Gweru, Tome attended Thornhill, Cecil John Rhodes and Redcliff Primary
Schools. She then did her Ordinary and Advanced Levels at Loreto and Harare
High Schools respectively. She is currently studying Social Work (Honors
Degree) at the University of Zimbabwe.
RESOURCES FOR WRITERS
AFRICA BOOK LINK
Visit
the website
LEGALIZED PILFERAGE - DEMISE OF AN INDUSTRY
Freedom
Gengezha
(Final part of article, first part appeared
in the previous newsletter)
The
beast which writers are facing is as complex as it includes all stakeholders in
the book sector and those individuals who see nothing wrong in the pilferage of
one’s intellectual ideas. Could there be some at the top echelons who have
either connived intentionally or otherwise, and turning a blind eye on the
plight that has befallen this industry, besides the thousands who buy the
‘stolen’ property as it is peddled in the streets? The later group’s complicity
is mainly due to ignorance and the biting economic conditions. An original copy
of a school textbook costing sixty dollars in the bookshop can be purchased in
pirated form for half the price in the streets. Common sense says one would
obviously buy the pirated version and save a few dollars, for what it contains
is the same.
A talk
with writers reveals that some publishing houses are at the forefront in giving
them a raw deal. Scripts are no longer safe in the hands of these opportunistic
publishers. Some books one find on the streets have a quality that shows that
they are not photocopied versions but copies of original scripts. Then it
boggles the mind how hawkers would have gotten hold of them in the first place.
Moreover, for those sold in the bookshops, it takes ages for authors to receive
their royalties and at times, periods of five to ten years lapse without
getting a cowry from the publishers. One then wonders if the writing profession
has become charity work for a few to ride in cars from the sweat of these
‘fools’. This is what has turned many writers into self-publishing which is
seeing many artists selling their own books, and to be brutally frank, this has
seen the quality of books out of this nation drop drastically.
The
government, surely, can do something to free the book sector from the beast of
piracy. Through tough legislative policies, the government can save this
sinking Titanic. To begin with,
pirated books should have no place in education institutions. Secondly, artists
should be protected like any other citizen when a report of theft has been made
to the police. If someone reports that his television set has been stolen and
he has seen it on the market being sold, the reaction is different from when a
writer reports that his books have been pirated and are being sold in the
street. What makes this theft of intellectual property to be tolerated? The
police themselves should have an anti-piracy taskforce that grabs these pirated
books from the streets. Or is someone more powerful benefiting from the status quo?
When
the President announces the Ministerial positions, writers and their colleagues
in other forms of art always have an interest in the Minister of Arts, Sports
and Culture with the hope that this individual would be one who might take
their plight seriously. The arts industry always hopes one day it shall become a
top priority for the persons filling this position.
Artists
have followed the changing trends and with everybody else they have also
embraced technology. They have also diversified to suit the global demands
through the availability of their works on e-platforms such as Amazon, eBay and YouTube. But the
curse of piracy has followed them there and their works are not safe from this
plague. A single download is shared among thousands and with some of their
innovations, when they take them to big corporations for sponsorship, their
ideas are pilfered and altered and the original
innovator remains on the losing end.
The
artist remains the ‘fool’ who does not have medical aid and has no funeral
policy, needing well-wishers to bury him after a life of entertaining and
educating the nation. Why does the writing profession seem to be the most
unrewarding to many Zimbabweans?
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