Born in 1987, Jane Tendesayi Nyamandwe is a Business Studies graduate from University of Zimbabwe. She did her primary education at Chancellor Primary School in Mutare. In 2003, when she was in Form Four at Monte Cassino Girls High, she won first prize in the middle category for the My Teacher Poetry Competition held by PTUZ (Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe). She was also a member of the Creative Writers’ Club at Monte Cassino where friends nicknamed her ‘Dambudzo’ and/or ‘Thomas Hardy’. Nyamandwe is inspired by writers Dambudzo Marechera, Ngugi wa Thiongo and Mariama Ba. She currently lives in Bulawayo.
“Hollow Sands” won First Prize in the 2013 WIN-Zimbabwe Short Story Competition.
Hollow Sands
“City! City! City!” touts scream for city-bound customers at this rank where people from all walks of life assemble for reasons only known to themselves. Fourteen-year-old Dzivaidzo, laden with a tattered black bag which houses her few belongings, crouches into a commuter omnibus that stinks of a mixture of diesel, beer and urine. The pungent smell almost suffocates her and she suppresses an instinct to inhale but fails, as evidenced by her distorted face. After battling with the loose seats which unhinge themselves frequently, Dzivaidzo slumps into the back seat and waits for the vehicle to fill-up. The driver’s window is cracked, and the one on the passenger’s side has been replaced by an empty and insubstantial fertilizer bag, which at any time can be utterly ripped off by the wind.
Through the window, she observes young boys, too young to have known the ravages of bread-winning, bellow their lungs out to attract the attention of potential buyers. READ MORE..
