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Out Of Africa
By Meg Thompson
Not Karen
Blixen’s novel “Out of Africa” but a Reading Evening for Zambian
writers organized by the British Council in conjunction with the
organization ZAMPEN. Being a self-confessed “book worm”, I was very
disappointed a couple of months ago to have missed a similar event .
From then on I religiously scrutinised the “Wots On” column in the
“Lusaka Lowdown” magazine, checked the daily newspapers and hounded
various British Council staff to ensure I didn’t miss the next one.
At the end of
June, my efforts were rewarded. Dashing home from work, I picked up
my three children, Jarell (17 years old), Caryn (13 years old) and
Gabriella (11 years old). They also love reading as much as I do. We
zoomed over to the British Council, successfully got past the guard,
who wanted to know if we were invited, and we entered a darkened
room packed with over a hundred people.
Being slightly
late after our mad dash, we missed the introductions, and found the
Master of Ceremonies introducing the first writer, Philip Chirwa. He
read his account entitled “A Surprise Encounter at a Wedding”. This
account told of a white lady, invited to a wedding, and weeping
throughout the ceremony. Someone noticed and informed the priest who
took her aside to find out what was wrong. I don’t want to reveal
too much of the account, but it was captivating. Next was Jack
Zimba with“Mirror, Mirror” a love poem with a twist at the end.
“African Moon of Love” by Moffat Moyo was next, an ode to the
African Moon. This was followed by “Dreams” by Pious Haachizo
Next on the
programme was Isabella Shamabobo with “Changeless Pearls”. I was
looking forward to hearing some female talent, but unfortunately she
was unavailable. I hope next time the women writers out there will
take part in the programme; you never know, it might just prod the
rest of us to get our pens out and start writing.
“The Last Fight”
by Gideon Nyirenda, was a captivating and moving account of domestic
violence through the eyes of a young boy.
The Special Guest
for the evening was Mr Binwell Sinyangwe, a Zambian writer with two
published novels to his credit. (Well done Mr Sinyangwe!). He gave
his thoughts on the state of Zambian writers and literature in
general in Zambia. (Not very encouraging).
Then he read some
excerpts from his novel “A Cowrie of Hope”. The story is about a
widow, who has gone back to the village after the death of her
husband. She is struggling to find enough money to send her
daughter to Secondary School. She manages to obtain a bag of beans
to sell in Lusaka, makes the journey there (a hilarious account for
anyone around at the time of UBZ buses) and unfortunately on arrival
the bag of beans is stolen.
If you want to
know more, you will just have to buy the book! (Look out for a
review of his book Quills of Desire in the October issue of
The Lowdown)
A plea to all the
booksellers out there, please stock the two novels written by Mr
Sinyangwe and other Zambian writers. Also consider some kind of
involvement with the organizations involved. To the large Publishing
Houses represented in Zambia (Longman’s, Macmillan etc) why not
sponsor a writing competition to help existing and up-coming Zambian
writers.
To Zampen and the
other organizations. Well Done! The challenge is huge but you need
to get out there and sell yourselves and your activities to the
public. If more people were aware of your existence, you would
definitely have more members and you may even be able to obtain some
form of support in terms of sponsorship or grants etc. I think more
effort is needed in terms of advertising and PR using channels like
schools, community radio, newspapers etc.
I was amazed and
proud at the amount of talent out there. But I was also puzzled as
to why I have never come across any of the people or organizations
before especially since I love reading so much. I hope that
organizations such as Zampen are successful in championing the cause
of talented Zambian writers of all sorts. And it’s up to us, the
so-called General Public, to support our Zambian Writers by reading
their work and finding out more about the organizations involved.
All in all it was
thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring and I will end with the comment
by my son, Jarell, which sums up a very enjoyable experience.
“I found the
gathering of artists in that badly lit room inspirational, being the
rookie of the art myself. The poetry and short stories gave me a
glimpse of some of this Country’s great writers, and the intensity
of their enthusiasm to their works overwhelmed me. I never gave
African works much attention but after those few hours spent
listening to the authors’ works, my eyes were opened to a whole new
world of intricate and interesting stories, both happy and sad. All
in all, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and can’t wait for the next
one.” |
September 2004