The Sunday News
Raisedon Baya
I AM a playwright. I write stories for theatre. I have a published anthology of plays under the tittle Tomorrow’s People. Some years back my anthology of plays was selected to be part of the Zimsec A-level syllabus. I was over the moon. When the announcement was made I had serious visions of finally making money out of my writing — remember very few writers are making money out of their creative work. It is every writer’s dream to be part of the curriculum.
Imagine every child who is studying your book buying it and you getting a good percentage of the money. Anyway, I soon found out that my books were not accessible to many. Most schools had no idea where to get the books. Since I had self-published I needed to market and deliver the books to schools myself (one serious disadvantage of self-publishing). So there I was slowly watching my dream fade away like morning dew as the sun comes out for the day.
To be very honest it is quite an honour for a writer to be studied in class. Nothing beats this kind of honour. And for one to be selected one has to be a serious writer — and exhibit serious talent.
Being selected means the academics value your work and feel it is worth putting in the classroom. Unfortunately the non-availability of my book robbed me of the honour to be studied by many students. However, that was not the only time academics felt the need to look closely at my work. Since 2000 I have had my work studied or used by various institutions for academic purposes.
In 2000 my first play Township Poverty was used by a German scholar for his doctoral thesis. Around 2005 Dr. Praise Zenenga used my play Rags and Garbage also for his doctoral thesis. My other plays in the anthology Tomorrow’s People have also been subjects of various university projects.
I know for a fact that students at Lupane State University, Midlands State University, University of Zimbabwe, and various other universities in and outside Zimbabwe have used my writings as part of their projects. This all sounds good — something that should put a lot of hairs on a writers’ chest. In fact from a distance it all sounds and looks perfect.
But today I want to pause for a minute and ask some questions.
How have these studies benefited, first the playwright, and secondly the arts sector in general?
Could there be a better way where this link between academia and industry can be exploited for the betterment of both?
What is the difference between a work that has been studied or used for a university thesis and the one that academics shy away from?
How can the arts sector access these university projects that purport to have been done for the betterment of the arts sector.
So far these are buried deep in university libraries.
Should university students pay to use one’s work in their projects? Or they should just use free of charge?
I raise the above questions because I have felt at times that students and even their lecturers believe they are doing artistes a big favour by using their work as part of their studies.
Most academics forget that artistes are into art not to massage their artistic egos but to put food on the table. I strongly believe that using my work for academic purposes should first and foremost benefit me as the artiste before it benefits anyone else. Unfortunately, we know that the immediate benefit is to the academic.
He or she passes and goes on to graduate. What happens to the artistes? Zero. For me I think the most painful thing is not being able to access these projects that are about our work. Since I am not an academic I would love to hear what the academics think about this situation — about this seemingly one-sided relationship between academics and artistes. Food for thought.
