The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu
FOR a country that gave the world writers such as Dambudzo Marechera, Charles Mungoshi and Yvonne Vera, Zimbabwe is not producing the calibre of writers of that quality currently, at least according to National Arts Merit Awards (Nama) actor and author Philani Nyoni.
While the likes of Petina Gappah and NoViolet Bulawayo continue to soar and fly the country’s flag high in the world of literature, the country has not produced another elite pen in the last few years.
With advances in technology and the advent of social media, some believe that the country’s reading culture is no longer what it used to be. Instead of novels, people are picking up their phones and taking in their reading in bite sizes.
Lack of readership is not the only problem that the literary scene in Bulawayo is facing. According to Nyoni, the city is fast running out of writers too and there’s a simple explanation for that.
“What we have noticed is that there’s a serious lack of skills transfer and we want to try and plug that vacuum,” said Nyoni who is set to host a workshop during this year’s Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo.
“That vacuum exists because there are no institutions that teach creative writing in the country and so you find that those that want to get into writing don’t know what to do. They don’t know where one goes in order to become a writer,” he said.
While he has gone on to carve out his name in the world of literature, Nyoni also said he was also clueless on how to kick start his own career when he was starting out.
“For example when I started I didn’t know what to do with my work. I didn’t know which direction to take my career because there were few people, let alone institutions, that I could turn to,” he said.
While Bulawayo had a lot of talent outside the city, the key was to get its few leading lights currently to start showing those behind them the way.
“What I’m basically saying is that if you look at some of Zimbabwe’s stars in the world of literature, there are a lot of people who’re exports from here. You see the likes of NoViolet Bulawayo and Chris Mlalazi doing great things but although they might have started here, their expertise isn’t benefiting young writers from Bulawayo and that’s what we’re trying to correct.
“Basically we’re trying to teach people how to be professional writers. We want to teach them different kinds of writing from fiction to poetry. So we will be teaching people all of that and then we’ll also be having some exercises in which we will be employing the techniques which participants would have learnt about,” he said.
According Nyoni, should the critical lack of skills in literature continue, the problem would begin to spread to other mediums that needed writers.
Although the workshop was geared at helping new talent, it would not be biased towards young people only, Nyoni observed.
“The workshop is open for everyone, both young and old. The young can develop their skills and the older participants can tell their stories. The workshop is about equipping writers to become writers.
“That’s why we will also touch on publishing, including such topics as self publishing because we want to look at the pros and cons of doing so. We want to look at how it is possible to build a career as a writer.”
