Why Zim needs a Literature Bureau

Stanely Mushava Features Correspondent
Zimbabwean literature is in austerity mode. The book sector has downgraded from a cultural vehicle to an exclusively commercial enterprise. If, as Ngugi wa Thiong’o once said, literature is the honey of a national’s soul preserved for her children to taste forever, then Zimbabwe risks a cultural malnutrition of epidemic proportions.
The matrices are harder to converge as authors write from a cultural mandate while publishers are in business to make money.

With nominal proceeds being realised from books, publishers are spiking many manuscripts in line with their profit-oriented interests.
The few literary creations that survive screening are co-opted chiefly on the basis of their potential to be picked as Zimsec set-texts, hence trimming creative work into a standardised format and condemning scores of cultural repositories to a stillborn inventory.

To fill the void, Zimbabwean libraries are inundated with donated books on American history and governance, while the remaining printing presses are seized with donor-themed literature.

Primary and Secondary Education Minister Lazarus Dokora announced plans to resuscitate the Literature Bureau while opening this year edition of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.

“Last year I expressed my wish to revive the Literature Bureau. We should be able to commission some authors in the near future,” said Minister Dokora, who is also a published poet.

“The potential for job creation through a vibrant book industry deserves special focus at this forum.
“We need to encourage and facilitate the expression of local and Pan-African talent in publishing and reading as the foundation of this envisaged revitalisation of the literary arts in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole,” he said.

Founded in 1957, the bureau was a Government commissioned agency for the promotion of indigenous languages through subsidised publications. It is credited for the development of the Shona in the pre-independence era. Its closure in 1999 was left a void in the publishing industry that has been difficult to close.

Despite its ambiguous origins, considering that it was incepted under Rhodesia’s Native Affairs Department in 1957 to align artistic expression with colonially permissible discourses, the bureau became a medium of African sensibility.

It is credited for spawning an accomplished ancestry of novelists and poets including Mordecai Hamutyinei, Ndabezinhle Sigogo, Patrick Chakaipa and Solomon Mutswairo, with such texts as “Feso” providing a framing point for nationalism.

Zimbabwe Women Writers’ Union board member Ruby Magosvongwe chair lauded the move which she said in the interest of preserving local culture and headlining 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. These are works that 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,” she said.

College Press editor Phillip Madzimba said the re-installation of the bureau was welcome, considering that the book sector needed Government intervention just like any other sector of the economy.

“Publishers would obviously want to defer the futility of stocking up print-runs for which there is no ready market. If the Government comes in to revive the reading culture and re-equip libraries the whole value chain will stand to benefit.

“The bureau will also help place the newly adopted official languages like Shangani, Tonga and Nambiya on the map. Presently we are looking at a dire situation where the 100 best books are in Shona, English or Ndebele although every language is a strategic repository of culture in its own regard,” Madzimba said.

“Gospoetry” exponent Ignatius Mabasa said the move was long overdue but there was need to shed colonial residues of the bureau and allow it to function autonomously.

“It will revive our ailing reading culture as a nation. At a present we have a situation where most writings reflect commercial interests of publishers not cultural development objectives of the nation,” Mabasa said.

Author, editor and academic Tinashe Mushakavanhu said: “Something like the Literature Bureau is necessary but I have reservations against the recreation of an institution with serious colonial baggage.

“The bureau in its early existence was a colonial institution for censorship and mediocrity. Africans were not allowed to be as creative and expressive as they wanted with few revolutionary exceptions like ‘Feso’.

“What we need is a national literature agency which has a broader scope in its mission to promote and co-ordinate Zimbabwean literature.
Mushakavanhu said there was need for the anticipated body to accommodate young artistes in its composition so as to guarantee continuity and to publish literary magazines to give writers more visibility.

Historian, biographer and columnist Pathisa Nyathi said the new body must give emphasis on nurturing young talent.
“The body must nurture young artistes who have a natural flair in writing so that their careers blossom with a corresponding quality. This is key in that when we, the older artistes, are dead and singing with the angels in heave there will be fresh talent to spur on our culture,” Nyathi said.

Nyathi also emphasised the need for recurrent workshops to facilitate interaction between established and aspirant authors.
ZIBF chairperson Musaemura Zimunya said the sudden folding of the bureau disenfranchised many writers whose work disappearing out of circulation with copies of their copyrighted work unaccounted for. He said the revived organ must attend to the matter in the interest of writers.

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 fledged and standalone bureau 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.

Programmes director at Write Africa Trust Lawrence Hoba said: “The biggest casualty has been literature in our indigenous languages as there are fewer avenues to get it published now,” said

“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, hence the need for a revived agency” 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.

“The revived bureau will therefore play a very important role in the discovery of new writers who have talent but no proven record. It is 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.