adminThere were 60 males and 21 females that entered the competition.
This was revealed by the director of Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo, Raisedon Baya, who added that some short stories had been received from people in the Diaspora.
He said after the 31 July deadline, Bulawayo had submitted 44 short stories, Harare 17, Matabeleland South and Manicaland three each, with Matabeleland North having four short stories with Binga contributing one.
Baya said the reason there were less short story submissions this year was because the competition was not adequately advertised.
“We used social media mostly this year and I think that is why there were less stories because not many people knew of the competition,” said Baya.
He said next week judges would look at the short stories for quality.
“The judges will look at the short stories for quality, because there is no reason to have hundreds and hundreds of entries that are not up to scratch in terms of quality,” said Baya.
He said the chosen short stories would be compiled into a book of short stories.
“We want to produce an anthology of stories that would have won the competition. We have identified some from previous years that we shall put in the book and also we shall choose from this year,” said Baya.
The Intwasa Short Story Competition is an annual literary event seeking to promote original creative writing talent in English and IsiNdebele. The competition has two awards; the Yvonne Vera Award for best short story in English and the Ndabezinhle Sigogo Award for best short story in IsiNdebele. The prize for each is $500. However Baya said due to lack of sponsorship the Ndabezinhle Sigogo Award was shelved.
“We could not secure sponsorship for the Sigogo Award so we put it on hold this year. However we shall be honouring a pioneer in IsiNdebele writing, Isaac Mpofu, who wrote the book Wangithembisa Lami in 1958. These are the few literary projects that promote local languages,” said Baya.
He said the shortlisted stories would be announced at the end of the month.
Other entries are Gweru with three and Masvingo, Victoria Falls, Chivhu, Kadoma, Rusape, South Africa, Algeria, all contributing one each.
A week before the deadline, only four short stories from Bulawayo out of 30 had been submitted for the
Intwasa Short Story Competition, Dr Yvonne Vera Award.
There were no entries from Matabeleland North or South before the last day.
Online Reporter