Reviewed by Beaven Tapureta The Testament of Black Jesus (2024), an epic by the award-winning protest poet Philani Amadeus Nyoni, presents a black saviour who, according to the poet’s words, ‘rises to speak great and dangerous words’. The saviour has a responsibility thrust upon her by past events, to spread the legacy, good or bad,…
Story by Beaven Tapureta Some writers go on retreats with a specific structure which subtly or openly calls for participants to have a refined product at the end. There are benefits, of course, drawn from these retreats which involve working with experienced facilitators who closely follow your development for weeks or months. In terms of…
HARARE, ZIMBABWE: While international honour and tributes for the African literary legend Professor Ama Ata Aidoo who died aged 81 on May 31, 2023 are still pouring, Zimbabwe will also bear everlasting memories of her inspiring character. In Zimbabwe, she consolidated her writer’s voice, becoming a full-time writer. Not only that, but when Prof…
BEAVEN TAPURETA HARARE, ZIMBABWE: Prolific Zimbabwean writer and poet Oscar Gwiriri is proud of his mother tongue, Shona, which he is doing his best to preserve through writing and defending it from being diluted by modern communication technologies and other forces. Shona is one of Zimbabwe’s sixteen official languages and is spoken in five major…
There is a badge of shame that seems to haunt Zimbabwean characters in a foreign country, especially when Zimbabwe itself is in the limelight for its economic and political instabilities.
Poetry has an indescribable power to do different things to different people. To the Zimbabwean poet and writer Ethel Kabwato, poetry is therapeutic and allows her to be happy, sad, or inspirational. In a wide-ranging interview with Beaven Tapureta, poet Ethel Kabwato revealed how poetry launched her onto a career which she finds self-healing and…
Zimbabwean artists, particularly writers, have been skeptical of wills and this has led to the mismanagement or utter neglect of their artistic estates when they pass on. While families of deceased artists may largely carry the blame for not raising a brow, artists need also to take responsibility of their creative works as these constitute…
The year is 1974. Jesesi Mungoshi, then a single young woman, is lying ill in her room at her sister’s house. She is apparently in pain. In a short moment, her sister’s husband comes into the room in the company of a friend and a fellow artist named Charles. Introductions are made. Charles has already…
Last time we featured Moses Magadza interviewing renowned Zimbabwean writer Chenjerai Hove. Now Magadza returns with an interview of another Zimbabwean writer, Beaven Tapureta, who says that too many people all over the world continue to turn their noses at writers, perpetuating the mistaken belief that they are essentially unemployed people. He says far from being part of…
