Tsitsi Dangarembga is seeking public support in her legal dispute with Ayebia Clarke Publishing in the UK. She is seeking pro bono representation in the country. Dangarembga suggests that it is “over rights to my work.” The Zimbabwean novelist and filmmaker is the author of the classic Nervous Conditions and its sequel The Book of […]
Tag Archives: zimbabwean literature
Petina Gappah on Being Influenced by Tsitsi Dangarembga, Admiring Teju Cole & Zadie Smith, & Why Her Livingstone Novel Took 20 Years
Petina Gappah has a new interview in The Guardian UK, and in it she talks about her most recent book, the novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light (2019), which tells the story of the people who carried the 19th century explorer David Livingstone’s body to the ocean. She explains her research process, how she created […]
Petina Gappah Criticizes Harare Bookshop for Overpricing Her Novel
In 2016, Petina Gappah reached a deal with her UK publisher Faber & Faber to make her books, the story collection Rotten Row and the novel The Book of Memory, available in Zimbabwe—in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Masvingo, Mutare, and Victoria Falls—at half the typical price. It was an extension of artistic responsibility and commitment, not […]
Opening Speech at the 2019 International Literature Festival | Petina Gappah
Petina Gappah is the author of the short story collections An Elegy for Easterly and Rotten Row, and of the novels The Book of Memory and Out of Darkness, Shining Light. The following is an excerpt from her opening speech at the International Literature Festival in Berlin, delivered on 11 September 2019. I Across the […]
Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger Out in Chinese
The iconic Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger has been translated into Chinese. First published in 1978 as part of Heinemann’s African Writers Series, the book is a collection of a novella and nine satellite short stories, and has widely been noted as a commentary on the author’s own troubled, tragically short life. […]
Tendai Huchu Lands Two-Book Deal with Tor, including Novel Compared to TV Series Stranger Things
Tor has acquired the rights to two books by the Zimbabwean novelist Tendai Huchu. The publishing press’ editorial director Bella Pagan bought world rights from his agent, Jamie Cowen at Ampersand Agency, while the press’ US executive editor Will Hinton acquired North American rights from Pan Macmillan. The first of the books, The Library of […]
Read the First Excerpt from Petina Gappah’s New Novel, Out of Darkness, Shining Light
Petina Gappah‘s new novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light was released on 10 September by Simon & Schuster imprint Scribner. Told by a woman and a man, it details the 285-day journey by a party carrying the Irish explorer Dr. David Livingstone’s dead body to the Indian Ocean coast. The publication of the highly anticipated […]
Charles Mungoshi’s Quiet Influence on Zimbabwean Literature | Tinashe Mushakavanhu
It is no exaggeration to say that Charles Mungoshi, who died on 16 February in Harare, aged 71, was one of the most important writers both in English and in a local language—in this case, Shona—to come out of Africa. Less flamboyant than his namesake Charles ‘Dambudzo’ Marechera, Mungoshi was a prose master of understated […]
Welcome to Brittle Paper, your go-to site for African writing and literary culture. We bring you all the latest news and juicy updates on publications, authors, events, prizes, and lifestyle. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram (@brittlepaper) and sign up for our "I love African Literature" newsletter.
