Rural Writers' Organization Nurturing Talent
This month Munyori Literary Journal publishes a special feature of Shona poets who are members of the Chisiya Writers’ Workshop Whatsapp Group, which is part of the Chisiya Writers’ Club. We are excited about this, as the works showcase the level of talent and hard work coming out of the Chisiya initiative. The Whatsapp groups members are from all parts of Zimbabwe now, but the group is specifically centered in Mazvihwa, to help nurture talent from the villages. The workshop started with the intention of being different from other workshops. Its primary goal being to serve as a rural-model workshop, shifting the center from workshops that often occur in the cities, in hotels and lodges.
The group was formed five years ago, as a week-long writers’ workshop at Gwavachemai Secondary School. The inaugural workshop facilitators were David Mungoshi, Memory Chirere, and former Gwavachemai student Emmanuel Sigauke. The group has stayed active and reaching writers outside of Mazvihwa by utilizing the digital space. Through its Whatsapp Group, the organization has managed to gather some of the most talented writers working in Zimbabwe today.
This showcase of the group’s work is a step further into meeting its initial goals, but is also a beginning of a partnership with Munyori Journal for future projects that involve writing contests, workshops, and publishing.
While the Chisiya writers work in different language, among them English, Ndebele, Kalanga, and others, this first feature showcases works in Shona, but in the future we may work with a translator to enable their reach beyond Shona, and to include the other rich languages of Zimbabwe. We are proud, however, to help digitize works in Shona, and to contribute to the growing archiving of works in different languages.
The poets featured here are as follows:
Enjoy everything!
