Zimbabwean literature is poised for an austere patch. The local book industry has ceded its traditional eminence and is hanging on a wafer-thin lifeline in the face of a digital holocaust.
Stakeholder efforts have stretched to the end of the tether. Writers are grappling for an urgent rescue package to bail out their endangered domain.
If, as Ngugi WaThiongo once said, literature is the honey of a national’s soul preserved for her children to taste forever, then Zimbabwe risks a cultural under malnutrition of epidemic proportions.
Towering stakes are lined up against new authors raring to break into print through established mediums.
Literary midwives in the last remaining publishing houses keep slamming steel bars against budding writers pregnant with creative energy, angling to deliver through the institutions.
Those who turn to self-publishing often risk having stockpiles of their books gather dust with no takers since marketing has its own financial hurdles.
The book industry has since downgraded to major with academic texts which promise guaranteed proceeds.
The few literary creations that survive screening are co-opted on the basis of their potential to be picked as ZIMSEC set-texts, hence trimming creative work into a standardised format and spiking scores of manuscripts to a stillborn inventory.
I took a snap tour across the literary community to establish its where-from-here mantra and bumped into nostalgia for the days of the Literature Bureau at every turn.
A fistful of established and younger writer bemoaned the closure of the Literature in 1999 and urged the incoming Ministry of Arts, Sports and Culture to institute an initiative that will plug the void left by the erstwhile government-sponsored book agency.
The Literature Bureau has ambiguous origins as it was incepted under Rhodesia’s Native Affairs Department in 1957 to align artistic expression with colonially permissible discourses.
The feat, however, attracted poetic justice as the bureau spawned voices that could not be muzzled, with such unimpeachable classics as Feso escaping the censor’s pliers to become framing points of African nationalism.
Elvas Mari who was the senior editorial officer of the bureau at the time of its closure said that its closure of the Literature Bureau seriously exposed the writers as well publishing in indigenous language
“The bureau was the state arm for nurturing and developing our culture and identity through literature. Among the biggest tragedy are the rights of writers.
“Thousands of unpublished manuscripts that the bureau held cannot be accessed by the owners and this must have left them demoralised and dispossesed,” he said.
Spoken word poet Mbizvo Chirasha said: “The demise of the bureau was a thorn in the flesh for young writers and poets. We mourn the fall of the book industry and reading culture in the country.
“The support writers and poets should get is lacking. We should lobby for the reinstallation of the entity.
“The book fair is also down and lacks the renewal that and realistic programming that suits the modern-day writer. We need more innovative ideas in running and reviving dying projects,” he said.
“The Literature Bureau outsoared its set function of circumscribing Africans and gave a sustained flow of literature in the local languages,” said author, academic and Zimbabwe ZIBF chairperson Musaemura Zimunya.
“Eventually, the post-colonial government adopted the bureau and rid it of the colonial stratagems leading to the emergence of many versatile voices.
“The sudden folding of the bureau left a yawning gap in our literature and many writers have their work disappearing out of circulation with copies of their copyrighted work unaccounted for,” Zimunya said.
Ruby Magosvongwe, a Zimbabwe Women Writers (ZWW) board member and former ZIBF chair appealed to the new government to resuscitate the Literature Bureau in the interest of preserving local culture and giving vent to new voices.
“This will assist in promoting and nurturing talent, without the barrier of profit-oriented publishing,” Magosvongwe said.
“The venture will not only give a voice to new authors but also reintroduce older publications which went out of circulation with the demise of the bureau.
“The importance of these works cannot be underestimated as they constitute the cultural legacy of the nation. They capture the soul of our literature in its infancy dispensation.
“While we appreciate the existence of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe to oversee the arts industry, it’s clear that it is inundated with all the art categories and literature is often taken for a peripheral concern.
“Budding writers are languishing in obscurity because they are practically no takers for their manuscripts,” she said.
Prolific literary critic Memory Chirere said it was within the government’s mandate to be a custodian of national culture, hence the need to introduce an initiative aimed at propping up the book industry.
“I really think that a people’s government must be fully involved in the development of a national culture. This can be done, by among other things, reviving a fully fletched and stand alone bureau that that looks into the development, reading and mediation of our literature,” Chirere said.
“This was demonstrated by the existence of a department for culture in the ministries for education, youth and sports and sports and recreation since 1980. The arrangement has however not given the literary sector the status it deserves and there is need to review the situation.
“The status and attention expected especially in terms of a robust and consistent government structure that has the financial and human resource allocation, administrative and management capacity to ensure that the literature sector becomes a major income and employment generator while providing for effective and comprehensive measures for the protection and promotion of the country’s rich cultural diversity,” Chirere said.
“I would say the biggest casualty has been literature in our indigenous languages as there are fewer avenues to get it published now,” said programs director at Write Africa Trust Lawrence Hoba.
“Lack of government support, while resulting probably from limited resources on the government’s side, has then had the effect of limiting the amount of new literature available for children to read,” he said.
UK-based Zimbabwean author Spiwe N. Harper said the closure of the bureau was one of the biggest losses to the book industry in Zimbabwe since it was the foundation upon which many of the country’s greatest writers were initiated.
“The essence was not to make profit for the publishers and therefore the fear, or rather unwillingness to take risks with new writers was absent.
“Most of Zimbabwe’s first generation literary giants, if not all of them, carved their writing careers on the backbone of the Literature Bureau. Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove, Solomon Mutswairo, Mordecai Hamutyinei, Bisset Chitsike and others found their way to literary fame through the Zimbabwe Literature Bureau
“The Literature Bureau played a very important role in the discovery of new writers who had talent but no proven record. The bureau gave such aspiring writers the platform to launch their careers. For the bureau it was not just about figures and fame but a genuine desire to discover new, untapped talent,” Harper said.
The Literature Bureau is credited by literary critics for producing vernacular Zimbabwean literature with a quality far ahead of its sub-regional counterparts in the fifties going forward
