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Ghana
Ghana may be a late comer in the league of Africa’s most sought after tourist destination, but it is no less alluring than, say, Kenya, South Africa or Zimbabwe. The eastern region of Ghana is a rich blend of dramatic landscapes, historic relics and traditional cultures. The region is dominated by Lake Volta, one of the world's largest man-mad ...
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Swaziland
Imagine the garden of Eden bristling with nature’s wonders; woodlands, wild flowers, wild animals and colourful birds and you are close to the reality that is Swaziland today. This landlocked Kingdom nestling between South Africa and Mozambique is imbued with unique characteristics – a sort of a throwback to the days when the noise of water ca ...
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17 Jul (TBA) Zimbabwe Caine Prize winner has plans in the pipeline
Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo, who won this year’s Caine Prize for her short story entitled Hitting Budapest, which wooed the judges because of its lyrical narrative of "moral power and weight," is a very engaging personality from whom the reading public can expect much more in the coming years.
Born and raised in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, NoViolet exudes the confidence of a writer who is at ease with her talent and speaks forthrightly about her ambition to write the kind of novels which resonate with important issues, such as the world she created in Hitting Budapest where a starving gang of children from a shanty town mesmerise the reader with their simple everyday gambits to survive in a harsh environment in which innocence is scuppered by the reality around them.
Surprisingly, it transpires that Hitting Budapest is her first published story, although another of her stories, ‘Snapshots’, was shortlisted for the 2009 SA PEN/Studzinski Literary Award.
Not surprisingly, NoViolet started horning her writing in primary school where her teachers used to praise her literary skills and natural ability to engage the reader.
She entered a writing competition while she was at school and won the top prize. “I was given a copy of one of Yvonne Vera’s books as a prize and I was thrilled because she was not only one of the most accomplished writers in Zimbabwe but was also a great inspiration to me when I was growing up.”
She acknowledges that her father, a retired policeman, who used to read to her a lot when she was young and enouraged her to do the same, also played a pivotal role in her ambition to become a writer.
“My father basically brought me up to be a writer,” she says. “I used to show him everything I was writing while I was at school and he would bring out a red pen and correct my grammar and spellings.”
But it wasn’t until NoViolet went to the US, with the intention of studying law that the opportunities to learn the craft of writing more studiously opened up.
She enrolled at Cornell university where she recently completed her Masters in Fine Arts (MFA).
She admits that this career change would not have pleased her father who, though fervent reader, had wanted her to pursue law. But now that she is a Capote Fellow and lecturer of English, she feels that her decision to follow her heart has been vindicated.
But it is when NoViolet talks about her wider interests and plans that one begins to appreciate that her ambitions are as broad as her undoubted talent as a writer.
“One of the things I plan to do in the near future is to open a writing school in Bulawayo, for school children with an ambition to write,” she says. “I know that there is a lot of talent back home which needs guidance and encouragement for it to flourish.”
She envisages that she will be spending many of her summer holidays in Zimbabwe teaching the craft of writing to children. She is so committed to this idea so much that she is already planning to study the Farafina model in Nigeria where renowned writers donate their time freely to help young writers through writing seminars.
NoViolet’s other passion is in filmmaking. “I have been taking film classes, including camera work and script writing because I see this as a natural progression from being a writer,” she says.
Travelling from the US to the UK to attend that Caine prize Award which has boosted her bank balance by £10,000, was apparently not a nerve wrecking experience for NoViolet because she wasn’t even anticipating winning the top prize.
“I was very surprised when my name was announced,” she says with a bright smile.
Not one to sit on her laurels, she has already completed a manuscript which she hopes will be good enough to enthuse literary agents and a publishing house. Judging by the wide acclaim her short story Hitting Budapest has received, she shouldn’t have long to wait before a publisher comes calling.
Previous winners of the Caine prize include Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava, Sudan's Leila Aboulela and Nigerian writer Helon Habila, all of whom have been snapped by publishers.
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13 Dec Kabila denies vote rigging in DRC
Joseph Kabila (pictured) who was re-elected last Friday as president of the Democratic Republic of has rejected claims that he won elections through widespread rigging.
He was responding to remarks by the Carter Center observer group that the DRC election results "lack credibility", while the Catholic archbishop of Kinshasa said they did not reflect "the truth."
The Carter Center, which deployed teams of observers to monitor the elections, pointed to differences in the vote count between areas where Kabila had strong support and areas that favoured Tshisekedi.
Some constituencies in Katanga province "reported impossibly high rates of 99 to 100% voter turnout with all, or nearly all, votes going to incumbent President Joseph Kabila", the Center said.
In Kinshasa, where 78-year-old opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi has strong support, results from nearly 2,000 polling station stations were apparently lost - roughly a fifth of the city's total.
Addressing a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa, Kabila, 40, denied that the results lacked legitimacy.
He said: "The credibility of these elections cannot be put in doubt. Were there mistakes? Definitely, but [the US-based Carter Center] has definitely gone far beyond what was expected."
Official results gave Kabila 49% of the vote against 32% for Tshisekedi. Reports in the DRC said Several people were killed in weekend protests following the announcement of the results.
Kabila said he was looking forward to the task of governing the DRC and was confident that the economy would achieve double-digit growth in the next two or three years.
Tshisekedi, who described the results as a "provocation" and "scandalous and vulgar," has however declined to mount a legal challenge against the results.
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