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Zimbabwean writing

Mufaro Makubika, Jocelyn Alexander and Tinashe Mushakavanhu join Rana Mitter to discuss archives and the writing of authors including NoViolet Bulawayo and Dambudzo Marechera.

A 70s London squat was home to the writer Dambudzo Marechera when he was writing his first novel The House of Hunger (1978), which was published in the Heinemann African Writers series and has now been issued as a Penguin Classic. Tinashe Mushakavanhu is researching his story and writings. Mufaro Makubika has adapted the coming of age story published by NoViolet Bulawayo in 2013 as a play, which is now touring England. Jocelyn Alexander is involved in creating an archive and oral history documenting Southern Africa's liberation armies and has researched experiences of political imprisonment over 50 years in Zimbabwe. Rana Mitter hosts the conversation.

Producer: Ruth Watts

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, in a new adaptation by Mufaro Makubika is a Fifth Word and New Perspectives co-production directed by Monique Touko. It tours to Derby, Manchester, Newcastle, Peterborough, and Bristol

The House of Hunger is available as a Penguin Classic.

You can find more discussions about African writing and history in a collection called Exploring Black History on the Free Thinking programme website /programmes/p08t2qbp

They include Pettina Gappah on African Empire Stories /programmes/m000fgxm

Louise Egbunike on Pan-Africanism and Nana Oforiatta Ayim on her African encyclopedia /programmes/m000c4mf

A focus on Wole Soyinka's writing with novelist Ben Okri, academic Louisa Egbunike and playwright Oladipo Agboluaje /programmes/m000k35s

An exploration of the politics and writing of Am铆lcar Lopes da Costa Cabral /programmes/m001ghhz

Available now

44 minutes

Last on

Tue 16 May 2023 22:00

Broadcast

  • Tue 16 May 2023 22:00

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