Harare City Library celebrated International Story Telling Day

We did it, we hooked into the global network and organised a story telling event on March 20th. Well done all involved!

I have been so busy lately at work with travel and functions that I have missed quite a few meetings and events.

A writing competition.

Storytelling Day.

I also missed the last BookCafe book club on Monday 25th :(

Every cloud has a silver lining, and this one is that the library is slowly but surely gathering energy and enthusiasm to get a few more things done. More staff and committee members are getting involved, and the funding partners are starting to get behind activities. Not easy in a very difficult financial and operating environment for staff to get involved, or the committee members who are mostly volunteers with day jobs.

There is no money in the renovation project for running costs, staff training or recruitment. It is all down to library members to pay their fees and their subs. And membership still remains very, very low. Not enough yet to pay a living wage to staff and interns. Without rental income on some critical library space (not ideal) the library would surley have to shut.

Go on, join the library.
Like us on facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Harare-City-Library/146502845409703?ref=hl
We need your support.

Shimmer Chinodya interviewed on Oprah?

The book cafe hosted its second book club on Monday 25th February. This time we started a little later at 6pm, but that gave everyone a chance to buy a soda, a coffee or something stronger from the bar. 

Once again it was a vibrant and lively event. 18 souls sat on white plastic chairs to discuss Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (the paper back version is $14 from the book cafe bookshop -Taku who runs it came and opened up at the end of the meeting so we could browse and buy). 

I read this book for the second time (and on a kindle too! first time ever). 

I loved the simple narrative style and the way every character reminded me of someone, just a little. Chimamanda sticks to a descriptive narrative voice that makes you feel closer to the characters and events. I like that. She has a beautiful turn of phrase that just helps bring the characters to life: 

Kembili “We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.” 

Sister cousin Amaka “People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It’s exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.” 

Aunty Ifeoma “Eugene has to stop doing God's job. God is big enough to do his own job. ” 

Whilst the characters are all believable, book club members had some divergent thoughts. One of the biggest issues debated was the novels end .

     'It was thumbed in' said Shimmer. 
     'Beatrice the wife just changed character too dramatically at the end, refusing relatives on the property, speaking her mind, letting her son go to prison for her husbands murder' said one group member, Tafadzwa, with passion. 
     'It ran out of steam, it finished too quickly, it was a muffled explosion!' chipped in the others (amongst them budding writers, students, mums and dads). 

Throughout the evening the tensions between piety and guilt, faith and fanaticism, the church and colonialism in the narrative were discussed. The latter raised comparisons with Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart'. But most of all, whether the story line (and characters) borrowed a little too much from Tsitsi Dangarembga's 'Nervous Conditions'. 

In Purple Hibiscus our teenage narrator, Kambili, is struggling with two worlds; her stifling and cruel home life, and the world around her (seen especially through the contrasting family life of her paternal Aunt Ifeoma, a liberal university lecturer whose faith is much less garroting than her brothers). 

In  Nervous Conditions the teenage protagonist, Tambu, yearns to be free of the constraints of her rural village, especially the limited lives of the women. When she is sponsored to school by an uncle she meets a character, Nyasha, who is chafing under her father's authority (although her circumstances are different the strict religious overtones are a common thread).

What do you think? Read all three and find out for yourself I guess. 

I know there are few stories that do not borrow from others. The theme of religion and women in african society is a hot potato that will be tossed from writer's hand to writer's hand for, most likely, eternity. 

One thing we did agree on as a group was to come back home, and read a local Zimbabwean author next. The date - Monday 25th March. 

We chose 'Chioniso and other stories' by our own Shimmer Chinodya (published in 2012). An opportunity to ask questions to and with a present author (how exciting). We felt the Nigerian authors had been romanced enough. Indeed, internationally so. 

Despite his first books being published when he was just 18 years old, the much acclaimed 'Harvest of Thorns' , a caine prize short list for 'Can We Talk' and even being Distinguished Visiting Professor in Creative Writing and African Literature at the University of St Lawrence in upstate New York, we have not yet had a Zimbabwean author on Oprah (though her favourite guest was reportedly a Zimbabwean). 

Shimmer Chinodya wants to be on Oprah. I heard it from the authors mouth :D

But my money is on Noviolet Bulawayo. That is another book for another time.