the writing ancestors are here and threatening to turn me criminally anti-social for 2015, but otherwise the possession is sweet. i dedicated Names to Za and now all the time the woman be like, Mkha, how come your second book is not done, you’re playing, and i’m like, i didn’t say i’ll dedicate the second one to you too, leave me alone. in the meantime, Fati, Zim’s newest young narrator says: “When I got tired of eating, I decided to take a walk to Chisiya, one of the hills that flanked our home, to look for my sometimes-friend, Chari, who never came to my home to ask me to play; he just went straight to the hill and waited there, hoping I would show up. As was to be expected, I found him leaning against a rock, aiming a catapult at a huge mutsviri tree nearby. I tiptoed forward so I wouldn’t startle his bird before he shot it, but I soon noticed that the catapult was empty. Poor Chari, if only he had thought of coming to look for me at home, he would have feasted too. But his mother, like mine, didn’t allow him to eat in people’s homes.” from the recently-released Mukoma’s Marriage and Other Stories by Emmanuel Sigauke. i don’t think it’s published outside of Zim so editors out there, ahem. taking a moment to show some love to the Zim writers telling our stories now, wherever they are, umkhulu lo msebenzi.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:28:20 +0000