Tendai Huchu, one of Zimbabwe's celebrated authors, is leading a group of fellow authors on a writers retreat in Nyanga
Nyanga Mountain, highest mountain in Zimbabwe
(Photo: Manica Post)
29 February 2024
24 February 2024
THANKS TO ESSENTIAL BOOKS
Some of the children's books WIN received from Essential Books
WIN-Zimbabwe continues to strengthen its ties with all book sector stakeholders, including local publishing houses.
In November last year, Norton-based Essential Books Publishing Company, founded by writer Aleck Kaposa, donated children's books to WIN as a show of its support for the Epworth Community library project.
Essential Books joins the growing list of book donors who have presented WIN with exciting and educative books for children and adults.
The Epworth Community Library project is like a writers' ark which WIN is building at its director's residence, thus its value will only be understood when the floods come! It aims to pragmatically promote reading culture in the community and beyond.
The major activity at the library has been the children's reading club. And naturally, the library is 'manufacturing' readers although it is working with limited resources.
Two weeks after its donation to WIN, Essential Books went on to hold its 2nd edition of Great Get-Together Book Launch on November 24, 2023, at the Afrotopia Cafe inside the National Art Gallery. More books were launched as writers and poets under the Essential stable read their works and/or spoke about their writing life.
The WIN director also spoke at the function and congratulated Essential Books authors for the hard work. However, he stressed one of the major weaknesses that most starting writers have, that they deem themselves 'established' after they rush to publish their raw works without thorough editing or consulting experienced people in the industry. Patience and faith, he said, are essential qualities crucial to the growth of a writer.
The get-together indeed provided an opportunity for writers to exchange books and information.
Essential Books founder Aleck Kaposa {left} and WIN director Beaven Tapureta at the get-together
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Support reading culture! Support WIN with whatever that helps the library - books, furniture, stationery, etc. and the readers, the kids, will be grateful!
THANK YOU.
MORE IN OUR FORTHCOMING NEWSLETTER.
23 February 2024
MABASA TRANSLATES 'NERVOUS CONDITIONS'
Tsitsi Dangarebga, the author of Nervous Conditions, a Zimbabwean classic.
Photo: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
"I started translating Nervous Conditions around 1999 when I was a visiting Fulbright scholar in the US, where I was teaching Zimbabwean literature. Nervous Conditions was one of the books I was teaching. Coincidentally, 1999 is the year that my first novel Mapenzi was published and I used to talk to my students about the sad situation that there was more Zimbabwean literature in English than in indigenous languages.
I pointed out that the majority of the ordinary women whose story Nervous Conditions was telling would not be able to buy, read and understand Nervous Conditions in English, because of their literacy levels. I thought perhaps I could try to translate the book into Shona as a way of repatriating and decolonising the story. " - Ignatius Mabasa
READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE
WIN LITERARY NEWSLETTER
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