The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
YOUNG, versatile and witty script writer Enock Chihombori of the Gringo drama series is working on Gringo, a cartoon book as well as children’s animal cartoon books.
The award-winning script writer was the man behind the creation of the popular and humorous Gringo series that used to air on ZTV whose cast was made up of the main actor Gringo, the comic Mbudziyadhura and equally funny Mudhara Gwejegweje.
He also wrote Cobra which was a boxing drama series. He won several awards as a script writer who, unlike many of his counterparts, did not remain in the background but also took up the challenge in one of the Gringo drama series where he acted as Toby.
Sunday Life spoke to Chihombori from his Botswana base where he is now based and he said he had abandoned neither the arts nor Zimbabwe. He emphasised that he was Zimbabwean through and through, contrary to information that he was not keen on coming back to the country.
Asked what he was doing in furtherance of his arts career he said, “I haven’t done much recently. I am most likely not going to engage in any form of artwork because of the prevailing situation in Zimbabwe where rewards are hard to come by.
“My most recent works are books I published last year, but I can’t have them being sold in Zimbabwe because of fear of piracy.
One is a Gringo cartoon book and the other is a children’s animal cartoon book which actually got nominated for a National Arts Merit Awards (Nama) last year. It did not win the award though,” said Chihombori.
The writer relocated to Botswana where he is now working at a mine. He told this paper that there were no rewards coming from his work as an artiste in Zimbabwe due to the gross effects of piracy, something he said forced him to look for work in Botswana.
He said he was now concentrating on writing and drawing during his spare time while pursuing a career in Mechanical Draughting.
He said people should not be quick to write him off in the arts industry saying although there were no rewards to talk of if a sponsor came by he would be happy to do another TV production.
“There were no rewards and I am now pursuing a career in Mechanical Draughting. We made a terrible loss due to piracy with our last Gringo film. I will always be writing though and if a sponsor comes along, I have no problem doing another Gringo.
What was wrong was that I ended up funding the project from my own pockets and I couldn’t sustain that.
“In the meantime I am concentrating mainly on writing and drawing during my spare time but I can’t distribute my books in Zimbabwe because I am afraid of book piracy that is too rife. Publishing companies are on their knees because of book piracy.
Most textbooks have been pirated in Zimbabwe and little has been done to stop the rot that is eating into the artists’ creativity and rewards,” he said.
Chihombori wrote Gringo, a television series with six seasons, three Gringo short stories on DVD and one Cobra boxing drama series.
