Harare Review of Books, November 2023
Dumelang!
My apologies for the lateness of this. Been travelling, then sick, then busy, and tired (so please forgive any errors). It’s been at least 50% fun, but mostly in retrospect.
I have never, ever experienced such a hot Johannesburg before. I don’t often go there this time of year, but I don’t think that heat was normal. Writing to you from what seems a drought year here; Harare has had no rains to speak of :( Even though we have droughts cyclically, feels a little bleak :/
But here are some clouds I enjoyed on that trip.
#YourStoryHere: Zim SF
Only a few days to go before submissions close (Dec. 5) for the second shonareads #YourStoryHere writing competition!
Details
shonareads invites Zimbabweans to submit Zimbabwean speculative fiction of approximately 3,000 words, in the next thirty days.
Prizes
1st: Amazon voucher worth USD150. Thank you to Zola Ndlovu and to Tinashe Tafirenyika for sponsoring. 2nd and 3rd: Selected books from Carnelian Heart Publishing.
Judges
Zola Ndlovu is an experienced intellectual property and technology lawyer with a passion for helping creatives protect their work. She is the Executive Director of Pink Tutu, a company that provides legal and business resources to creative entrepreneurs.
With a belief that art is a catalyst for change, Tinashe Tafirenyika has disrupted the Zimbabwe Poetry Scene. In 2017 she became the first woman and youngest person to receive a National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) in Spoken Word Poetry in Zimbabwe. The same year she also received a Bulawayo Arts Award (BAA) for her poetry. In 2018 she became the only person to have won a NAMA twice in the Spoken Word Poetry category. She released her first poetry video, “Sarah Baartman” that year. When not stringing words together Tinashe practices as a Medical Laboratory Scientist.
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer, editor & publisher from Nigeria. He has won the Nebula, Otherwise, Nommo, British & World Fantasy awards and was a finalist in the Hugo, Locus, Sturgeon, British Science Fiction and NAACP Image awards. His works have appeared in Asimov’s, F & SF, Uncanny Magazine, Tordotcom, Galaxy’s Edge, and others. He edited the Bridging Worlds, Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthologies, and co-edited the Dominion and Africa Risen anthologies. He was a CanCon goh, and a guest of honour at the Afrofuturism themed ICFA 44 where he coined a new term/genre label, Afropantheology.
Peter J. Maurits is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. His first book is titled The Mozambican Modern Ghost Story and he is now writing a book on African Science Fiction. He likes to run far, and up things.
Sista Zai Zanda (Sista Zai/aChihera) is an Afrofuturistic Storyteller. Sista Zai was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and raised in a large extended family. Achihera is Karanga/born rukesheni and now lives as a Black African settler on Kulin Nations in “Australia”. Amongst career highlights, aChihera is a 2019 recipient of the Neilma Sidney Travel Fund, a recipient of a competitive Melbourne Strategic Scholarship to research for a PhD in Afrofuturisms at the University Of Melbourne and her poem, “Lioness” was selected for “Best Of Australian Poems” 2022 anthology.
Interview with Farai Mudzingwa
Honoured to have had a chance to sit down virtually with Farai Mudzingwa, author of Avenues by Train. He answered a few of my burning questions.
Interview with Farai Mudzingwa, author of Avenues By Train – shona reads
Recently, on the blog
Thorsson’s accessible book explores the story behind a 1977 photograph of nine Black women posed in front of a portrait of a tenth:
[Evelyn] White’s caption describes the photo this way: “A group of black women writers in New York who met informally during the 1970s. Back row, left to right: Verta Mae Grosvenor, Alice Walker, Lori Sharpe, Bessie Smith, Toni Morrison, June Jordan. Seated, left to right: Nana Maynard, Ntozake Shange, Audrey Edwards.”
[Alice] Walker knew this group was important enough to go back later and make sure that all the names of the women were on the back of the photo.
[More]
Text; from Anglo-French tiste, texte, from Medieval Latin textus, from Latin texture, context, from texere to weave. (Merriam-Webster)
Weaving. A tapestry. That’s what Jazmina Barrera presents us with: a text woven from threads about the lives of three young women, about embroidery as text and language (the textural possibilities in it), and about the (feminist) history of embroidery, with vivid scenes about traditional Mexican embroidery. [More]
So much of the world’s best reporting is about hard things—violence, war, racism, the failure of social systems—and the pieces collected in 2023’s The Best American Magazine Writing are no different. [More]
In a cursory search, I’ve been unable to find the origin of the term “unruly body”, but it first came to my attention in Roxane Gay’s Unruly Bodies project. I’ve also read Susannah B. Mintz’s Unruly Bodies: Life Writing by Women with Disabilities, and We Are All Monsters by Andrew Mangham—or, more accurately, I tried to, but they are both very scholarly, and most of it went over my head. All of which to say, I’ve already been interested in monsters (Monster Studies is a huge topic on its own!), and “unruly bodies+monsters” will be my latest rabbit hole, no doubt. [More]
This is the fourth volume of this excellent anthology of Japanese writing, this time with a musical theme. Although MONKEY has been consistently excellent, with a beautiful layout, Volume Four shows much more polish than previous ones, and is a particular pleasure to read. [More]
This little story somehow wormed its way into my heart, after a less than auspicious start. The protagonist is a really very obnoxious ninety-year-old man at the beginning of the novel, who happens to die and then mysteriously will himself back to life. Right after that, though, as if that isn’t enough, he meets Death, who he finds sitting in his kitchen. [More]
It’s impossible to say you enjoyed a book like this—about a horrific event in human history—but the graphic style is brilliant, and beautiful, and I enjoyed that. The content, about the Holodomor, makes for extremely difficult reading. [More]
I love it when I finish a sci-fi read and feel sated, and William Ledbetter (Level Five, Level Six) is becoming one of my favourite SF authors. I didn’t completely love every single story in this collection, but there are soooo many good ones here. And he writes the only kind of sci-fi that matters—that is, hard SF (: [More]
I enjoyed Las Madres, the story of five women who have built an unusual family. They have ties to Puerto Rico, but live in Maine and New York. The story centres around Luz, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a teenager, and who has needed a great deal of care since. [More]
I have several criticisms, but please note that these are related to the advance copy. The novel tries to do far too much, and the author introduces several threads that really don’t go anywhere. Where there are descriptions, they are too detailed, leading the reader to think those things are of significance to the story, when they’re not. [More]
Happening in books
The Feed: Happening in Books—an HRB newsfeed
News
Protean Magazine published a translation of “I Grant You Refuge” by Palestinian poet, novelist and teacher Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on October 20.
Click here to read more about efforts to preserve Bessie Head’s literary archives.
Adania Shibli has spoken to the Guardian about the cancellation of her award ceremony by the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Strange Horizons released a statement in solidarity with Palestinians.
Lola Shoneyin is one of the FT’s 25 most influential women of 2023.
Check out this discussion between Lauren Cerand and Brad Listi about how to think like a book publicist: How to Think Like a Publicist
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize judging process has begun. The shortlist will be announced in April 2024, regional winners in May 2024, and the award ceremony will happen and the winner of the global prize will be announced in June 2024.
Here are Electric Lit’s fave poetry collections of the year.
Tom Burgis, author of Kleptopia, will have a new book out in 2024 titled Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own The Truth.
“One in twelve children and young people aged 5-18 in the UK do not have a single book of their own in their home,” according to the National Literacy Trust :(
This survey says parents want to read with their children, but lack time or confidence.
Eugen Bacon has announced an upcoming anthology of artistic essays titled Afro-Centred Futurisms in Our Speculative Fictions.
Bernadine Evaristo will chair the judging panel for Cassava Republic’s Global Women’s Non-Fiction Prize. Other judges: Sylvia Tamale, Natalie Baszile, Carole Boyce Davies, and Panashe Chigumadzi.Evaristo to chair first Global Women's Non-Fiction Manuscript Prize
Hachette UK and Flame Tree Press are joining forces: Hachette UK becomes shareholder and strategic partner of Flame Tree Publishing
Lithub reports that Gaza’s main public library was destroyed by Israeli bombing.
Writing Africa reports on the launch of the CANEX Prize for Publishing in Africa.
Author Petina Gappah was at Ake Festival, which looks like it was—as usual—amazing.
The Beeb will adapt Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light.
Femi Kayode has signed a deal for the next two books in his Philip Taiwo series.
Morgan Talty has signed a three-book deal with And Other Stories.
Here’s the cover art for An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children, by Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker, via Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
This was cool (and made waves): the resignation letter of Anne Boyer as poetry editor for the NYT mag
The First Lady of Iceland is writing a “locked-room mystery.” Well, huh.
Lara Ehrlich, author of Animal Wife, has sold her next novel to Red Hen Press.
Spotify have launched audiobooks in the US, after launching is Australia and the UK.
Brian Chikwava’s new novel, *Shamiso*, will be out from Vintage Books in January 2025! The synopsis: Shamiso, Zimbabwean girl, meets George/Georgie, a gender-fluid Afro-Brit boy. They can’t stand each other at first but eventually fall hopelessly in love, before being traumatised into separate paths by their mutual prejudices.
Steven King will have a new short story collection out in May 2024 called You Like it Darker. 2024 marks 50 years (!) of publishing for him.
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s fourth novel, The Creation of Half-Broken People, will be published in 2024 by Picador Africa for the southern African market, and by House of Anasi Press in North America. It’s described as a gothic novel that “tells the tale of a nameless woman plagued by visions. She works for the Good Foundation and its museum, a place filled with artifacts from the family's various explorations in Africa, the Good family members all being descendants of Captain John Good, of KING SOLOMON'S MINES fame. The novel explores how the continent's past continues to haunt its present and examines the collusion of colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism in creating and normalising a certain kind of womanhood.”
Petina Gappah will release two non-fiction books between now and next year—a memoir, Heaven is a Library, and an essay collection, This Dream Called Zimbabwe. She’s also completed her fifth novel, Ballantyne Park.
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is part of the “creative team” for a comic that will be out in 2024, along with Bill Campbell, John Jennings, and David Brame. It’s titled Lion Man, and Ndlovu says on Twitter that you “might see a Mugabe-like villain.” Lion Man
The UK’s Society of Authors has elected Helen Fields, Nadine Matheson, Nikesh Shukla and Julia Williams to its board.
Zeke Faux’s Number Go Up was introduced as evidence in the SBF trial. The competing book, Going Infinite, was ruled inadmissible (if that’s the correct term, I dunno).
Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me sold 1.27 million copies in the US and the UK in its first week.
Events
I attended two events in Harare this weekend, and have a third one to look forward to soon. The first was the launch of a new Zimbabwean magazine, Design//Life, by Milly McPhie . Look out for it soon. Also attended a private gathering of creatives and lovers of the arts, from writers to foodies (she called herself a Doomsday prepper of sorts), DJ/music people to interior designers. That was really fun too. Love the initiative to create a multidisciplinary community outside of the usual creative silos.
Kadija Sesay announced the International Black Speculative Writing Festival, to be held on Feb 2-4, 2024, at Goldsmiths, University of London. There will be “workshops, discussions, readings, storytelling, advice sessions, clubs, book launches”, and performances.
Carnelian Heart Publishing invite you to the launch of Kudzai Mhangwa’s Moments in the Private Room on Dec 7, 2023 at Courteney Hotel.
Join Catalyst Press on Dec 5 at 12 pm ET as a panel of Kenyan writers discuss the literature scene there. Free, reg. required.
Prizes
Bulelwa Mabasa (My Land Obsession: A Memoir/Picador Africa) and CA Davids (How to Be a Revolutionary/Umuzi) are winners of the 2023 Sunday Times Literary Awards.
The winner of this year’s Booker Prize is Paul Lynch’s *Prophet Song. more about the book: Everything you need to know about Prophet Song, winner of the Booker Prize 2023 | The Booker Prizes. Also, a funny takedown of the book.
Michael Magee’s Close to Home is Waterstones’ Irish Book of the Year 2023: Magee's 'witty and moving debut' named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year and Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell is their 2023 Book of the Year, with In Memoriam by Alice Winn named Novel of the Year: Rundell’s Impossible Creatures named Waterstones Book of the Year
Rebecca F. Kuang’s Yellowface is Foyles’ Book of the Year 2023: Works by Kuang, Rundell and Bohannon crowned Foyles' Books of the Year
Hannah Lowe and Alia Trabucco Zerán are the 2024 winners of the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award.
Sarah Bernstein is winner of the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize for Study for Obedience. Finalists included The Double Life of Benson Yu x Kevin Chong, Birnam Wood x Eleanor Catton, The Islands x Dionne Irving, and All the Colours in the World x CS Richardson.
Scottish writer and poet John Burnside wins the David Cohen Prize for Literature.
The winners of the 2023 Alta Awards: ALTA Blog
Alycia Pirmohamed is winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize for underrepresented voices in nature writing.
The 2023 Morland African Writing Scholars are: Rafeeat Aliyu (Nigeria), Mubanga Kalimamukwento (Zambia), Kiprop Kimutai (Kenya) and Remit Ngamije (Rwanda/Namibia). Morland African Writing Scholarship Winners 2023 - The Miles Morland Foundation
Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead is Hay Festival’s Book of the Year 2023.
Deena Mohamed wins this year’s Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for Your Wish is My Command from Granta Books (also known as Shubeik Lubeik), which she translated herself from Arabic.
Ed Yong, author of An Immense World, has won the Trivedi Science Book Prize.
Here are the 2023 Royal Society of Literature International Writers: Tony Birch, Yussef El Guindi, Lorna Goodison, Yaa Gyasi, Han Kang, Yiyun Li, Attica Locke, Valeria Luiselli, Anne Miachaels, Scholastique Mukasonga, Maria Stepanova and Gao Xingian. RSL International Writers - Royal Society of Literature The RSL also announced two new prizes, the Entente Littéraire Prize for YA lit, and the RSL Jerwood Poetry Awards.
Among the (US) National Book Awards winners: Justin Torres/Blackouts/Fiction, Ned Blackhawk/The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History/Non-Fiction (currently reading), Stenio Gardel, Bruna Dantas Lobato (tr.)/The Words That Remain/Translated Literature. More: National Book Foundation, Presenter of the National Book Awards
A question
Other cool stuff
A quote from Claudia Rankine: “I love language because when it succeeds, for me, it doesn’t just tell me something. It enacts something. It creates something. And it goes both ways. Sometimes it’s violent. Sometimes it hurts you. And sometimes it saves you.”
Check out Granta 165: Deutschland, free until Dec 3.
Here’s a free download of a “FicSci” anthology called Flow. (We need to talk about the proliferation of subgenres at some point lol).
A book review (🔐) by J. R. Osborn of _The Zimbabwean Maverick: Dambudzo Marechera and Utopian Thinking_by Shun Man Emily Chow-Quesada: The Zimbabwean Maverick: dambudzo Marechera and Utopian Thinking
A massive thread on Twitter of 100+ Black Books out in 2024: jas is ✨AGENTED✨ on Twitter / X
Here’s a quote from UKLG: “The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.”
Lauren Groff on whether or not she’s in her fiction: “I’m convinced both that there’s no such thing as autobiographical fiction and that there’s no fiction that’s not entirely autobiographical. My answer for this question is the same with every book: There’s not a Lauren Groff in it—whoever she is has been made a little grotesque by fiction.”
Ann Morgan reminds us that Kafka said literature is “the noise trumpets of nothingness.”
Any thoughts about AI narration for audiobooks?
Craft
Residencies
Submissions and opportunities
In Australia, writers and storytellers with disabilities can apply to join this writing group.
The Idembeka Creative Writing Fellowship, running from Jan 9 to 13, 2024, is calling for submissions, and closes on Nov 30, 2023. Entrants must be African and resident in Africa, with three or fewer publicaions. Application For The 2024 Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop
Bloomsbury Books have announced a new academic writing fellowship for early career academics.
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki has put out a call for a new anthology of Caribbean Pantheology. Check out the announcement.
NewContrast are calling for submissions of art, interviews, poetry, prose and reviews until Mar. 1, 2024.
Some (very) intellectually stimulating reads this month:
Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art x Lauren Elkin (ARC)
Cross-Stitch x Jazmina Barrera, Christina MacSweeney (tr.) (ARC)
Deeply thoughtful ones:
The Best American Magazine Writing 2023 x Sid Holt (Ed) (ARC)
Black Love Letters x Cole Brown, Natalie Johnson (eds)
Two historical ones:
The Non-Believer’s Journey x Stanley Nyamfukudza
Red Harvest: A Graphic Novel of the Terror Famine in Soviet Ukraine x Michael Cherkas (DRC)
… and some very fun ones:
The Long Fall Up and Other Stories x William Ledbetter (ARC)
The Untimely Resurrection of John Alexander MacNeil x Lesley Choyce (ARC)
MONKEY New Writing from Japan: Vol 4 x Ted Goossen, Motoyuki Shibata, et al. (ARC
That's it for now. Hopefully this will keep you going for the next month.
You can find me in all of the usual places: linktr.ee, on the blog, or by replying to this email.
Take care! See you for the last edition of the year.
St 🌸💫
The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.
Ursula K. Le Guin