Something to celebrate

Something to celebrate

NoViolet Bulawayo, a young Zimbabwean writer won this year’s Caine Prize for African writing. This is Africa’s premier literary award and NoViolet is the second Zimbabwean to win it, after Brain Chikwava in 2004.

Zimbabweans don’t have much to celebrate these days. It was a proud moment as she went up to the podium in the awe-inspiring Bodleian Library at Oxford University on Monday night to receive her magnificent prize.

The chairman of the judges, award-winning Libyan novelist Hishan Matar, heaped praise on NoViolet for her literary prowess. He said her short story, which had been published in the Boston Review, had moral power and weight. “The language of Hitting Budapest crackles,” he declared.

NoViolet joins other Zimbabwean literary luminaries to be celebrated by the international community – Dambudzo Marechera, Yvonne Vera, Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove, Tsitsi Dangarembwa and many others – in establishing Zimbabwe as a centre of literary excellence.

Her story is about stealing guavas from the Bulawayo suburb known as Budapest.

We hope her success inspires other young Zimbabweans to tell their stories. Story-telling, until fairly recently, was still a significant part of Zimbabwean culture. Many of us have vivid memories of sitting by the fire listening to our grandparents telling us stories.

We have been luckier than many cultures in holding on to this precious tradition for so long. But the scattering of more than a quarter of Zimbabweans to the four corners of the world in search of a life free from violence and poverty has hastened its demise.

NoViolet is one of the scatterlings. She left her home in Bulawayo at a tender age to study in the USA – and has remained there ever since, not once returning home to the motherland she loves, which nurtured her stories. She joins millions of young, talented Zimbabweans enriching countries other than her own with their ideas and their labours, their songs and their laughter.

It should not be like this.
Culled from The Zimbabwean