Christopher Mlalazi

The Literary Year Ahead (2012)

2012-01-13T06:46:00.000-08:00

It is January now, and I think this is a good time to try to take stock of what the year ahead holds in store for one. Is this a good thing to do – well, I think it is in terms of career planning, and to also try to bolster one’s soul.

Is writing my career? Yes definitely it is. And that question I am always having to answer – what do you do full time? How do you earn a living?

This question has unpleasant connotations. That people believe that one cannot make a living through the arts, or writing as in my case.

The answer to that one is subjective, one can or cannot, but for the past four years ever since I left my job as an acting bursar in a government school, I have become more freer and happier, and what more do we pursue in life other than that? So there…

Of course there have been turbulent times, life has never been smooth for anybody and it will never be– if it’s not this it’s that, but here I am writing and enjoying every moment of it all, and more so when I see what I aspire to achieve blossoming by the day...

And so here is the check list. My play, Fes’bhuku, directed by Daniel Maposa, and produced by Savana Trust of Harare, which opened, in October 2011, is headed for more shows around the country in 2012. Fes’bhuku is a look-see on social media, Facebook, Twitter and so forth, and its impact on semi rural communities, and infused with loads of humor, and of course the usual acid political satire. Check.

The present core of my 2012 expectations is the publishing of my latest novel, Running With Mother, by Weaver Press sometime between March and February which I finished during my 2011 term as guest writer at the Nordic Africa Institute in Sweden, but had started started when I was Feuchtwanger Fellow at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles in 2010 I would like to believe that this is an international book as it has crossed seas and continents during its creation. This is my third book to be published so far after DANCING WITH LIFE and MANY RIVERS, and oh yes I am happy I have gone this far in terms of publishing. What more can a writer wish for? This gives me strength and a heart warming smile, some energy that sometimes is so hard to muster. I wont talk much about the latest book as it is still not yet out, but please watch out for it. And please don’t ask for free copies, but BUY.

I also have two plays which are still at manuscript stage, and which were written in 2011 but written for the 2012 theatre year. I am still looking for production houses for the plays and so far have not met with any luck, but I believe in the plays, and one day they will hit the light. I am loath to look for a director and actors/actresses and produce the plays myself as it involves so much work and also resources that I do not have – I guess I am very lazy, and so finding a production house seems the easier option for me – if only somebody they can believe in the plays just as I do.

Still on the plays, one is titled THE FORGOTTEN, and tells the story of a visually impaired woman conquering over serious adversity. This one is a two character cast. The other, titled PURPLE BLOSSOMS, is a one character cast, and also tells the story of adversity and hope from the point of view of a grave digger called Digger who is looking for his missing wife and daughter.

I also have another novel manuscript which I have been working over for the past three years, and the funny thing is that the one that has been taken up by Weaver Press was started much later than this one, about six months ago, but will see the printing press first. So you see, this proves that if you feel you are stuck on a novel project, put it aside and start on another one, you can still go back to it if you finish the new one. Do not let old work delay your advancement.

Currently, I am working on a Ndebele TV drama which is now at an advanced stage.

There is another project I am working on when I am not writing or reading – hey, this just reminds me, I am so behind in my reading it shames me!

This project, which I am working on with visual artists, is titled ‘VisualisingZim.’ When I was in Los Angeles in 2010, I did a Multi Media Story Telling course, which entailed learning to collect and create stories/news for the electronic media using the video, audioslide shows, and podcasts fomart. And so I have been creating short documentaries of visual artists (painters) in my city of Bulawayo and loading them on youtube and Facebook, with the hope that the work of these painters can be viewed internationally and draw attention to Zimbabwean art. So far I have done 15 documentaries in Bulawayo, and hope one day to as many as I can nationally. My other hope is that one day I will open up a website for these documentaries which will serve as an electronic gallery/register of the visual arts of Zimbabwe. This is an exciting project, and I love every minute I working on it.

Lastly, but not least, I have been promised a Fiction Fellowship in the USA sometime soon in 2012, but I will talk about this when everything has been finalised…

Fes'bhuku, my new play (launched October 2010 at PROTEST ART INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL)

2011-11-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

....2011 has seen a flurry of plays coming out of my pen. The first was opened at HIFA 2011, the hilarious comedy COLOURS OF DREAMS, and the second opened at the PROTEST ART INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL, also in Harare, in October. The following is an extract from the press statement posted by Leonard Matsa of Savanna Arts, the organization behind PROTEST ART FEST. This was copied from Facebook..

....However, one of the plays that is certain to leave lasting impressions at the festival is Fes’bhuku performed by Savanna Trust, a play that talks about the impact that social networks such as Facebook have made to communities in Zimbabwe. Until recently, remote areas in Zimbabwe have been insulated from the rest of the world due their inaccessibility and other reasons. With the advent of internet and e-mobile, the rural folks have suddenly found the whole world at the tip of their fingers.

Social networking sites have become as popular as elsewhere in the world giving the hitherto “invisible” rural folks a platform to speak and access world-wide views. Everything is now almost within reach. But it is the social network wave that has taken these remote areas and other places by storm. Such a powerful tool in the hands of anyone and everyone is bound to present interesting questions and scenarios.
The play, Fes’bhuku written by Chris Mlalazi, is based on this new social networking phenomenon. In the absence of specific regulation, how does this platform of expression impact on remote communities that are suddenly fast-tracked into “ownership” of this powerful tool? Or does it even need to be regulated seeing regulating it would be tantamount to crafting what to and not to say for the previously disempowered voices?

The setting is a rural growth point. Marvellous is new on Facebook and his past posts have not be so clean so to speak, well according to his friends and family. His wife has hidden the only record of his profile password to discourage Marvellous’ obsession with Facebook and Marvellous, oblivious of how to recover the password is prepared to lose everything for his password so he can throw an important post. Marvellous will stop at nothing to be heard. Fes’bhuku is a must watch....

***

I must also add that I have written two other plays for 2012, and this time I am going for the one man cast, so watch out for them. I hope the first will premiere at HIFA 2012 if they accept it, but following the success of my 2011 plays, I bet it will be taken...

I have another important announcement to make in the following weeks about my writing career, something has happened, and oh yes it is GOOD!

And those who already know please keep your lips sealed....:)

Reflections on my Nordic-Africa Institute 2011 Guest Writer residency

2011-09-21T05:09:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of my Villa Aurora creative writing residency in Los Angeles last year, I was already thinking where I could get the next residence where I could try to finish the novel project I had started there.

I must also comment that it is very challenging for me to write from my home country of Zimbabwe currently because of the incessant power cuts that we have been experiencing for the past decade or so ever since our politics tottered - my writing relies heavily on the computer and online research and if there is no electricity that becomes a very huge challenge.

Of course when I started writing seriously all those years back, a solid sixteen of them now, I was using the old fashioned clickety-clack typewriter, but I cannot deny myself the advantages of the advances of modern technology simple because our politicians are failing to get their act right can I?

And so here I was pondering on how and where I could find another residency when I got an email from the Nordic Africa Institute saying they would like to have me over as their 2011 Guest writer for the months of April to June 2011.

Wow! When I got the email it was around November 2010. I some way this was an excellent development because I had just started working on the new manuscript and I was writing slowly, but when I got the invitation I was like a cat whose tail has caught fire. I was galvanised.

I set a target. I wanted to have the first draft finished in Los Angeles in three months from October to December, and then take a break from the manuscript from January to March 2011, and then go to Sweden in April and immediately start writing from April to June (Another three months) and then get back home, sit down another three months from July to September, and then hopefully work on the manuscript for the last time for another three months – October to December.

So far everything is on a brilliant schedule, it is mid September right now as I am writing this document and I am just waiting for October to come so that I can get to work on this exciting manuscript again. Yes the manuscript has got me excited and I can barely hold myself from touching it…

The Nordic Africa Institute is based in the charming university town of Uppsala in Sweden, where everybody seems to ride a bicycle. Almost all the streets of the city are paved, and so clean that the city seemed to me almost surreal. Of course my city of Bulawayo, which is the second largest one after Harare in Zimbabwe, once held a continental record of cleanliness, and so somehow I was almost at home in Uppsala, almost....

I arrived in Sweden in spring, just as the snow was thawing from what the locals commented had been a very frigid winter. I do not like the cold and so one can imagine how happy I was at this news as I had just escaped from another winter at home.

Of course when I arrived I saw the last dregs of snow on the countryside on the way from Stockholm airport, and I think this was good as later I was to see a magical change of the landscapes as the land suddenly blossomed into full spring.

In Zimbabwe we do not have snow, and so I guess our winters do not have the devastation on the land that snow countries have, and the experience of seeing a seemingly totally vegetation dead landscape suddenly come to green life was so touching.

I had an office at the Institute, but I preferred writing from my hotel room, a habit I have developed over a long time as even in my home country I write from home in the mornings, and then go to my studio at the National Gallery In Bulawayo in the afternoons to do administration – write emails, discuss writing with other writers, and also creativity with visual artists.

I guess there is something about writing in a room that smells of home that is totally different from the scents of an office – at home you feel laid back, and for me that is the correct stimulant for a good dose of creative output.

Some writers might wonder about what a writing residency really is.

I remember before I went to one. I always thought it would be all stiff and scholarly - well there is a bit of scholarliness, which from my experience in the USA and Sweden, is about ten percent of residence time, just like a book royalty - for the rest you are left alone, and literally so – but are given the resources to make your writing time fruitfull – free internet, maybe a stipend (depending on the residence), and lots and lots of private space if you are the lone dog or yoga type.

What you have to do is just make sure that you leave the residency with your writing batteries re-fired.

There are also rigorous application processes to get into a residency, and these are based on your writing record.

As part of the guest writer grant at the Nordic Africa Institute, I was also given the opportunity to attend the Literature Festival in Lillehammer in Norway, another magical city with awe inspiring landscapes, and also World Village in Helsinki (Finland), a two day festival which had about 40 000 people passing through it in on the first day. Another wow!

In Lillehammer I had a poetry reading, where I met one of my favourite female singers from Zimbabwe I had almost forgotten still existed because of this Diaspora thing.

This was Busi Ncube of the ‘I want True Love’ fame, and she was still singing as brilliantly as I last saw her in Zimbabwe, and if not more. Watching her sing and dance I had a pang of sadness – will we ever see all these brilliant artists who have fled the country coming back home even if things normalise? But I was happy for her too, that here she was doing what she knew best, and making people dance and be happy.

At World Vilage in Helsinki I had two talks. And during this time I also visited Berlin where I gave a talk at the Literature House to a packed house which was facilitated by my 2010 hosts in Los Angeles, Villa Aurora, whose office are in Berlin.

So, in summary, I am back home, back in the incessant power cuts and a political climate that is at stalemate, but I am happy to say that my two plays which I wrote during the Nordic Africa Institute residency have both been taken by two different organisations, Savanna Trust and the world renowned Inkululeko Yabatsha School Of Arts (IYASA). The one for Savana Trust is titled Fes’bhuku, which is a commentary on the impact of Facebook on semi rural life, and the other one for IYASA, a musical, is titled WE CAN ALL DANCE (Dancing For Peace And Reconciliation), and it is the story of a young female dancer who wants to unite the people of her township across all divides through dance and music.

Both plays will be opened before the end of this year, 2011.

Of course there is also the novel, but I am still working on that, the title and names of characters and set have performed so many chameleonic changes, and one never knows when such a project can see the light of day, but all I can say is that I am still excited by the project, and am working hard on it.

Thank you.

My books at Amazon.com

2011-04-30T04:01:00.001-07:00

Visualising Bulawayo In Paintings

2011-04-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

Charles Bhebhe on Food Aid

I have recently started a new project with painters from Bulawayo, titled Visualising Bulawayo In Paintings. This is a series of audioslide documentaries of painters, showing their work plus close interviews on the inspiration or philosophy behind it.

Danisile Ncube on - collage & fractured society

The audioslide shows are three minutes or less in length, which is an ideal format for quick viewing, and can also be used as fillers in between TV programs, or as culture news both on TV or on news websites.

Voti Thebe on The Sprituality of Color

I have found the execution of this project very interesting - it is giving me an insight into paintings which I would not have got had I not involved myself in interviews with the painters, for often for the uninitiated into the fine arts, we often view paintings from a distance without knowing what they mean or reflect, and espeially abstract paintings - and even though we observe them from a distance, we are aware that there migt be some messages or information encoded into them which with our scant knowledge we are unable to decrypt. This is the enigma of the visual arts - and sometimes too we do not want to decode that message behind the painting, but we want it to remain unknown, so that we can keep coming back to the painting to gaze and ponder on it.

Tafadzwa Gwetai on Grafitti & Existence

It is now my intention to document almost every painter in Bulawayo in this project if I can find them, although I will have a criteria for those who will come into the project for it must have merit. I also hope to create an electronic register of all practising painters in Bulawayo, and hopefully one day or year come up with a national register that can be accessed for research purposes, or can be used for screenings in visual arts workshops. I have uploaded a few of the audioslide show documentaries on this post for those who want to have a taste. Enjoy

Allen Sibanda on Follow Your Heart

My journey in theatre so far…

2011-04-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

It is every playwrights dream in Zimbabwe to break into the Harare International Festival Of The Arts theatre program, http://www.hifa.co.zw/node/129, and more so as this festival is regarded as an international arts platform, and also drawing huge international audiences where one might possible grab international opportunity.

I remember when I wrote my first theatre script sometime back in 1998, which I gave to the now defunct Sadala Amajekete Theatre group.

I must admit that then I didn’t know what HIFA was. I was only aware of Inxusa, the arts festival pioneered by Amakhosi in Bulawayo, and run by Cont Mhlanga, which I also wanted to break into but failed to do so as Inxusa ceased to exist before I was ready. I was only able to break into other Amakhosi Theatre programs later, the National Amateur Theatre program, which is also now no longer in existence, but I will talk about that later.

Why did I write that first play in 1998? Let me try to remember. Then I had been writing prose and poetry for a long long time, and some of it was beginning to appear in our local Sunday Newspaper, and then the artistic director of Sadala Amajeke Theater, the late Clever Biggie Chimwanza, noticed that and he approached me and asked me to try my hand at writing for theatre. Never underestimate the power of your local community newspaper to also throw opportunity your way.

This was the beginning of my long engagement with theatre, which also had its ups and downs like any other human endeavour, which has finally led me to the HIFA stage. Of course there is more ahead in theatre, but I will talk about the now here.

When I wrote that first play in 1998 for Sadalala, I didn’t even know how one structures the play script, for reading and writing are two very different things, and I had to scramble and start re-reading other play scripts, how scenes were divided, and how the storyline is kept unfolding without losing the interest of the audience.

I finally came out with the manuscript THE TIME OF TROUBLE. The play was about the coming of the Ndebele people to present day Matabeleland, and led by Mzilikazi. I must say Sadala Amajeke really let me down on that play. They only managed to put on stage the first scene, which they went around showing as a teaser of their upcoming play by a new playwright going by the name of Christopher Mlalazi. But I must admit that even that one scene caught the attention of theatre lovers – it was as hair-raising as any good play could be.

I waited for many years for Sadala Amajekete Theater to complete and master the whole play and stage it – and they totally failed. They kept telling me that they were still rehearsing, ‘and if you want you can come and watch it.’

I would go to the rehearsals, and find the rehearsal room full, of both actors and people from around the rehearsal centre attracted by the play, for, like I said, the play was a stunner – everybody so much wanted to see the it fully staged. Ishmael Muvingi, one of the greatest actors/singers/dancers from Bulawayo, who is now touring the world with Siyaya Arts, was still with Sadalala Amajekete then, and he was the spine of the rehearsals coming up with breathtaking performances.

Five years later, and nothing had still been done with the play, it was still standing literally with – that one scene that was the talk of town. I must say I had become a disappointed man then. These guys had been holding up my growth in theatre for so long.

And then came another break. Sometime in 2003 Ishmael moved from Sadalala to Umkhathi Theatre, which was a wise move indeed because Sadalala were just wasting people’s time. Umkhathi Theatre is also more professionally run by their Director, Matesu Dube. When Ishmael moved to Umkhathi, he asked me to write a play for his new group along the lines of THE TIME OF TROUBLE, and I quickly scripted THE SOIL OF THE SON for them.

This play told the story of Shaka the King of the Zulu, from his birth to the time he became King, and stops there. Traditional plays fascinated me then, especially political traditional satire, because most of them ran a parallel with the political situation of Zimbabwe, and also had a universal appeal. And this new play was a completely different take from the movie Shaka Zulu starring Henry Cele that was a hit during those days, as it concentrated more on attempting an psycho –analytic investigation of Shaka’s childhood, and the reasons why he became the bloodthirsty conqueror at adulthood. I was reading Sigmund Freud during those times also.

Umkhathi Theatre were fast and efficient, and within a short time the play hit the stage, and became an instant hit in theatre circles in Bulawayo. I remember vividly one performance at Girls College in Bulawayo during their Culture Week, where I had invited Brian Jones and Jane Morris of amaBooks, my present publishers. The play received a standing ovation from the audience, and so too at Bulawayo Theatre. Ishmael Muvingi had directed the play and infused in it traditional music and dances that made it into this stupefying quasi musical drama that transported even me the writer to that bygone era of the Zulu Kingdom.

I became totally hooked into theater.

From there I wrote two plays for the Amakhosi Amateur Theatre program, THE SUN BEFORE, and AS I AM. And then I wrote another one for Umkhathi Theater, titled NKULUMANE, which was another traditional play about Prince Nkulumane, the son of King Mzilikazi of the Ndebele.

At this time I was also active in short story and poetry writing, and both were beginning to be published internationally, but I will not write on my literature exploits here.

And then in 2008 I co-wrote THE CROCODILE OF ZAMBEZI with one of Zimbabwe’s most prolific and award winning playwrights, Raisedon Baya, which was awarded the OXFAM-NOVIB PEN FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARD at the Hague. This was my first award in theatre, although I had been mentioned in several in my prose work at that time.

I was now in full gear, a runaway train hurtling along.

In 2010 I opened my first play at HIFA, titled ELECTION DAY. The play went on to be nominated in three categories at the 2011 National Arts Merit Award – Outstanding Theatrical Production, Best Actor, and Best Actress. It finally scooped two awards, the Outstanding Theatrical Production and Best Actor, which was a highly satisfying achievement indeed. The play was directed by Eunice Tava.

Election Day tells the story of a dictator from an unnamed African country who is losing at the polls during Presidential Elections, and all those around him have panicked and want to flee the country, at the forefront his wife and personal advisor, but the dictator is refusing to flee, saying he wants to be buried on the soil of his country. Unknown to everybody, he has an ace up his sleeve.

I first wrote Election Day as a short story which was published in the Edinburgh Review of 2005, and later adapted it into a stage play in 2007, and it got into the stage in 2010.

And now I am back again at the 2011 edition of HIFA with another play titled COLORS OF DREAMS. This play, which I hope will be as exciting to audiences as the writing process was to me, is another socio, economic and political satire. It tells the story of two families, a former money changer and his wife, and a school teacher and his live in girlfriend who is a prostitute. Both couples have been affected by the collapse and removal of the Zimbabwean dollar from the money market, and now a rumour has come into town from the money changers ‘highly placed’ connections. This rumour galvanises these two families into a trail of dreaming about their future and that of the nation.

It is April of 2011 as I am writing this article, COLORS OF DREAMS is under rehearsal at HIFA 2011 right, and I am already thinking of another play for HIFA 2012,for it is said once you start a fire, keep blowing on the flame…

Reflection on my 2010 Villa Aurora Residency in Los Angeles

2011-04-09T04:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.villa-aurora.org

It is very difficult to describe how I felt when I first read the email that announced the news that I had been selected to be the 2010 Feuchtwanger Fellow at the Villa Aurora artists’ residency in Los Angeles.

It was in January of 2010 when I read that email, and at that time I was attending the HIFA-DIRECT theatre workshops in Harare where I was preparing my political satire titled Election Day for its world premiere at the 2010 Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA).

It was also my first time to be involved with HIFA after an almost decade long struggle of attempting to breakthrough. It really is tough to make breakthroughs in life, and surprisingly when they come sometimes they come as an avalanche, true to the saying ‘sometimes it does not rain but it pours.’ In 2010 it was pouring for me.

As I am writing this article, it is January of 2011, and I am waiting to go to Sweden where I was selected at the end of 2010 to be the 2011 guest writer by the Nordic-Africa institute, a fellowship that will also allow me to finish off a novel project I started at Villa Aurora, and also give me the opportunity to do book tours of Nordic countries as well as see the countries and its peoples.

So there I was one morning in January of 2010 and I go into the theatre workshop at HIFA-DIRECT and coolly announce to the other participants that on my way to the workshop venue I had passed through an internet shop and there I had received the news that beginning of April to December of 2010 I had been invited to a residency in Los Angeles, and also unfortunately for my play, that I wouldn’t be there to see its premier in April at HIFA as I would be in the USA by then. Of course I can’t keep secrets, and that is one of my biggest weaknesses, and in Ndebele such a person like me is referred to as ‘somebody whose chest was kicked by a Zebra.’ You are always coughing out everything.

Soon I had sent this news to all me email contacts, I had posted it on my blog, and also on my Facebook page. How could I deny myself this glory? This was my moment.

And this also came at a time when I had never been out of Africa – of course I had been to several international writers’ forums in other African countries, in Kenya twice – The Caine Prize Workshop and Kwani Lit Fest, Uganda for Beyond Borders Literature Conference, and Ghana for the Pan African Literary Forum. I had also toured Zambia and Botswana for Power In The Voice, which was a spoken word festival for High School students from all countries of the SADC Region and also the UK.

But now Los Angeles…

I think anybody can agree with me that there is something magical about the name of Los Angeles, the city of angels, and especially if you are coming from a township somewhere in Africa…

The Villa Aurora was the home of Leon Feuchtwanger, the German-Jewish writer who fled persecution in Nazi Germany during World War 2 and temporarily lived in France, and had also to flee France before the Nazi advance, and finally settled in the USA, where he bought Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, which is now an artists residence and historic landmark. When Leon Feuchtwanger fled Germany, he took along with him some of the books from his library which had survived seizure and burnings by the Nazi’s, whilst other books were shipped out to him by sympathetic friends, and this vast collection of books is now housed at Villa Aurora and also at the University of Southern California.

Going to the USA was also a task in itself. First when I tried to apply for a visa, I was told that my case was being investigated by the USA embassy for fraud, and so I could not be issued the visa straight away, but I would be informed after a few weeks about the results of the application.

Fraud, me! Anybody can guess that the next coming two weeks were not the happiest in my life - I wanted to be gone, I wanted to get to Los Angeles and start writing, and also revel in being there, for who does not want to travel to the world film capital once in their lives?

I also wanted to get out of Zimbabwe and refresh my exhausted soul, because even though our economy was sort of stabilising because of the recently introduced Unity Government and the introduction of the multi currency system, life was not as easy as one would wish it to be in their lives, and also a bit distracting to the novel project I was involved in then, titled Autumn Leaves, and which thankfully I finished at Villa Aurora and am now looking for a publisher for it.

I will also not hide the fact that I have received several rejections of the manuscript from publishers so far, but I believe in the manuscript and will never lose hope – I know a publisher is waiting out there for such a kind of story as is written in the way I have written mine, and it is only a matter of us meeting; Rome was not built in one day, so the learned say…

I had thought the investigation of my visa application would take a few days, but we had to cancel the flight bookings and reschedule them again as the flight days got dangerously nearer and there was still no word about the visa from the USA embassy. The original flight dates passed by, and there was still silence from the USA embassy. Now I was beginning to get worried – silence is worrying, especially if one is waiting for something that you know has the power to bring change to your life – just like the Presidential election results of 2008 in Zimbabwe.

Finally, after some weeks, I received a telephone call from the USA embassy – my visa was ready.

I live in Bulawayo city, a six hours travel by road to the capital, and when I got to the embassy, it was discovered that my passport had been printed with a visa with an error and it had to be cancelled for another one, and this new one had to be requested from Washington again too, and would be issued the following day.

I spent another night in Harare, and the following day the new visa was issued, and I think my sigh of relief was even heard in Los Angeles.

Then the volcano in Norway exploded, and the ash cloud closed all flights over Europe.

I travelled as far as Johannesburg from Bulawayo where I spent an anxious two nights at the airport there sleeping in the transit lounge because my connecting flight to Frankfurt had been cancelled, and finally decided to abandon the trip, and flew back to Bulawayo again with a heavy heart, for I felt that life seemed to be against me.

If I had been a superstitious man, I think I would have gone to a bone thrower to ask for luck, but I didn’t. I spent another week waiting for the dust cloud to clear, and finally flew off again, and safely and finally got to Los Angeles.

Villa Aurora in a majestic two-storey house in an isolated part of the Pacific Palisades in the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles. Of Spanish architecture with magnificent balconies, it overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and one can imagine such a place, of waking up every morning high up on a mountain to the sound of birds, and with the sea spread far down below you.

One would argue that such a sight is too grand, and it can distract one from work because all you would want to do is just to sit in the garden or balcony and enjoy the view, and I would agree to a certain extent, but after a few days or weeks depending on one, the beautiful sight sort of recedes into the distance, and the beauty of your work in progress once again comes to the forefront, and once you combine these two, the idyllic scenery and your work, then you can now start working beautifully.

For me, the best way to enjoy the scenery and my work was to put both two on a schedule – have time for the view and also time to work.

In the morning, like a patient taking their morning dose, I would give myself time to sit or stand in the garden and absorb the sight, just also like a person praying and finding a balance with one’s soul, then after some time I would go into my room which also had a window overlooking the ocean, and I would start writing or reading. Sometimes I would put a chair in the garden or balcony and work from there.

Villa Aurora also houses artists from Germany for a period of three months in three cycles annually who come in groups of four; a visual artist, a music composer, a writer and a film maker. The Feuchtwanger Fellow is the only artist who stays at the villa for nine months, and also is not from Germany.

There is also a wonderful support staff for the artists at Villa Aurora, led by Imogen, and I am forever grateful for their warmth and homeliness – Claudia, Daniel, Mechtchild (based in the office in Germany), and all the internees. And also the wonderful Gould family in the house across the street, Howard and Trish.

The residency also offered me the valuable chance for cross cultural interaction with my fellow German artists, twelve of them in total during my entire period there, and also with American people, of which I found beneficial as it opened my world view, and in some way I know that in the long run this will feed into my writing as, also, engagement with these foreign cultures also put my own African culture into clear perspective.

I also took part in panel discussion during festivals at the Universities of California (UCLA) and Southern California (USC), and did readings in Los Angeles at Eso Wan Book Shop, and in Sacramento at the Sacramento Poetry centre to wonderful audiences.

Of course I did not forget to go on long rambling walks in Santa Monica, the nearest town, and especially the 3^rd Street Promenade where the performing artists display their art on the streets.

Nine months later, like I mentioned before, I am back in Zimbabwe and I am the proud owner of a finished novel manuscript and I am also now trying to finish another one. I will not mention the contents of the novels I am working on before I find publishers for them as I do not want to compromise my work.

I am also refreshed and attacking my writing with a new vigour. I find I am also more confident, I am more aggressive, and lastly but also importantly, I am also even more inquisitive.

Election Day

2010-11-12T09:35:00.002-08:00

http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-11-02-mlalazis-debut-play-opens

Mlalazi’s debut play opens

There probably could have been no better time than now for award-winning writer Christopher Mlalazi’s play, Election Day, to premiere at Theatre in the Park than now, as the talk of elections next year reaches fever pitch.

First staged at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa), the play pulsates with the rich touch of first-time director and two-time Nama best actress Eunice Tava.

Election Day, which opens to the public on November 10, poignantly reflects the agitation people experience around election time, The Zimbo Jam reports.

The play’s cast, made up of talented actors and actresses, includes Privillage Mutendera, Teddy Mangawa, Tafadzwa Bob and Brezhnev Guveya.

According to the play’s brief synopsis, it is election time and His Excellency Poka Oka Ndiseng’s ruling party is losing by a very wide margin in the polls.

His wife, Samantha, and his personal advisor, Twenty, are both panicking and they are urging Ndiseng to flee the country, but an adamant Ndiseng tells them he is not going anywhere and wants to be buried under the soil of his ancestors.

“The intention is not to insult anyone but to just poke fun at election fever in not only Zimbabwe but the whole world,” Tava said.

“Elections have been a very sensitive subject in most countries and as artists we find the various stories about elections in Zimbabwe very interesting and full of drama hence a source for our creative work.”

Rooftop Promotions producer Daves Guzha said they were “on a deliberate drive as an organiasation to provide exposure to Zimbabwe’s emerging talent” in line with their mission.

“Our experience with emerging artists has been fulfilling so we are confident that what we are doing is to ensure posterity in the theatre industry,” Guzha said.

Election Day had its world premiere at HIFA 2010 as part of the Hifa direct theatre mentorship project by Hifa and British Council where it had three sold out shows at the 50-or-so seater Reps Upstairs theatre.

While Tava is not new to theatre, being an experienced actress in her own right, Mlalazi is prominently known as a novel, poetry and short story writer.

Election Day

2010-11-12T09:35:00.001-08:00

http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-11-02-mlalazis-debut-play-opens

Dancing with Life and www.book2look.com

2010-07-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

'amaBooks Publishers have advertised their recent books, including Dancing with Life: Tales from the Township, on www.book2look.com. The website has 'biblets' of the individual books containing brief information, extracts and online outlets.

Click on the image of the cover of Dancing with Life in the right hand column to have a look.

The picture here is from a reading group at Mzilikazi Library in Bulawayo, who have been discussing the book. One of their most pressing questions was the meaning of the title of the story A Heart in My Hole.

My Name Is Dubekile

2010-03-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

(First published in the Sunday News in 2009)

My name is Dubekile. I am 9 years old, doing Grade 5. I would like to tell you about my father. My father is an old man with grey hair. He was born in 1978. I saw his date of birth on his ID the other day when I was searching his wallet for R50. He had said he did not have the money, but in the morning I had seen him at the bottle store braaing meat when I was flying kites with my friends. My father was also holding a bottle of beer, and he was laughing with his friends. In the afternoon he came home staggering, took off his trousers in the kitchen and immediately went to sleep in the bedroom. He was wearing an old jogger short underneath. Mother was not home, she had gone in the morning to town where she sells juice cards which she buys for US$1 and sells for 15. When father had gone to sleep, I searched his pockets and took his wallet, which I opened and saw his ID, but he had no money, but only a condom inside. That is when I saw his ID. 1978. I needed the R50 because the headmaster said if anybody who does not have it must not come to school on Monday. The money is not for school fees. It is for paying our teachers salaries. The headmaster says we must pay their salaries now since the government does not want to pay them. I want to pay my teacher because he educates me, but my father does not want to. He says it is not his duty, he says he is not the one who is employing the teachers. He also says when he was at school there was no such thing as paying teachers education was for free and why this nonsense now. Sometimes I do not like my father. He is making us suffer. Sometimes we go the whole day without eating anything at home, but if you go the bottle store, there you find him drinking beer with his friends. And they will be laughing too. I do not remember the last time I laughed, not because I do not like laughing, but because I have no reason to laugh, what with this hunger and anger that fills my heart everyday. Yes I am also angry. And I am also scared too, because my anger sometimes just comes without any provocation. Father is angry too. He is always shouting at me and mother, and when he is drunk it is even worse, because he sometimes beats me. He is always saying ‘do you think money grows on trees?’ The other day when he said that, just after he had also insulted mother for not cooking for him when there was not even any food in the house to cook, I asked him wena mdala do you think money grows at the bottle store? and that is when he said I must go away from his house, and then he went to sleep. I did not go away because the house is not his. We are lodgers, and the house belongs to Mr Skhulu, who works for the city council. Mr Skhulu has another house in Nkulumane, and another in Pumula South. Anyway, it was in the afternoon, and I knew that in the late afternoon when father woke up, he would be sober and sorry looking and he would be pretending that nothing happened, and life will go on as usual. Sometimes I pity him. My father. Deep down I know that he is a harmless old man born in 1978 who is only confused by always being broke. Mother the other day told him that they must go together to town together because she knows a man who burn DVD’s and sells them eGodini terminus who is looking for an assistant, and father said if mother is having an affair with this man, he is going to ‘burn’ her also and sell her for a scud, then off he went to the bottle store, carrying an empty bottle of beer. Later I saw him laughing and carrying a quart at the braai stand. This man amazes me sometimes. How can somebody who is failing to pay the R50 for my education refuse employment when he is offered one? And the money for the beer. How come he can afford it when at home he is a total failure financially? Sometimes I wonder, is there something that he is doing that mother and me are not aware of? Or maybe uyaloya and he can make money but that money is only for buying beer and braai and if he used it for something else, it would disappear? But still, I will continue searching his wallet when he comes in drunk, maybe I can get the R50 my teacher wants…

2010-03-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

I met a cat in Harare. I was staying in a back packers lodge, and as usual when I am travelling, I always make sure I wake up early, around 5.00a.m, and put in an hour or two - or three - of writing before I go about my business. So there I am, coming from breakfast at 8, and I find this cat which seemed to be appreciating a sculpture, and who wouldn't hesitate to take a picture of such a fanstastic morning sight?

Workshoping Election Day

2010-03-19T05:47:00.000-07:00

As most friends and followers of this blog know, I had originally intended this blog to be solely a poetry blog, but careful consideration of my poetry output, and the time gap between posts, has made me change my mind. I am now going to make this a general blog, a space where I let all my creative juices flow. And for a start, I have posted a pciture from the Harare International Festival Of The Arts 2010 - Direct workshop of my play ELECTION DAY, which I am proud to say is going to open in this year's HIFA. In the picture are two actors (apologies I have forgotten their names) and Eunice Tava in the white cape, whos is going to direct the play. I am happy also that a woman is going to direct this play. Previously all my plays have been directed by men, and I know from the workshop that having Eunice is going to introduce a new perspective to the vision. As most of you already know, the play ELECTION DAY is an adaption of my much published short story of the same name. Much has changed in the play, but the main story line remains still the same (vote rigging). I will keep you posted on the play, the perfomance dates, the actors etc.

Peace Deal Part 2 (Jan 2009)

2010-02-02T06:05:00.000-08:00

Still we wait

For the power sharing agreement

That still eludes our nation

As the powers that be still bicker

Over who shall have the power

To our national resources

As cholera decimates

Hunger has a field day

And our dollar limps from the Reserve Bank

Headed for the the refuse dump

When Will This Serpent Shed Its Skin

2009-06-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

Country peeling
Old crusty skin
Lovers and haters
Plucking at the drifting flakes
Blown before
cynical currents
Trying to patch tattered dreams
That still
In their gaunt eyes gleam
Like unflinching agate
In sun-blasted
Wind-blasted
Mute deserts

I Remember

2009-06-22T03:18:00.001-07:00

A squirrel settles on my shoulder
Nibbling on a nut
It’s long furry tail entwines around my neck
I sigh, pick up the gentle animal
And hold it in front of my face –
It close’s its small eyes, nuzzles my nose
And nimbly leaps from my hands
And easily up the tree…

A short distance away
The gentle murmur of a brook
I remember one day too Gugu
We bent down to look
Into the clear depths of a pool in a valley
And two young love struck faces
Were gazing up at us
You threw a stone into the glassy surface
And the faces were broken into shards...

I stand up and turn my back to the south
Where I came from I don’t know when
And never care to know again
As a grey dove whirrs from the open sky
Settles on the tree
And coo cooe’s down at me
That it is time to start gathering dewy fruits
For my morning meal
And the doe’s are waiting in the dale
Their dug’s swollen with fresh milk
That my bloodless hands they do not fear
Shall squeeze into a gourd

The Crowning

2009-06-22T03:14:00.001-07:00

I shall crown your waist with a bouquet
Of fragrant blossoms
I shall plead with the kind sky
Just to drop one silver star
From its shimmering bosom
That I shall press upon your navel

I shall ask the sucked out sickle in the night sky
To lend its softest shine
To the warmth that courses through your blood
That your skin can drip milk
And be textured as the finest silk

I shall plead with the wind to be merry
And waft freshly and briskly past your dale
That I shall fill with birds
Of the sweetest song and finest plumage

I shall ask the setting sun
To turn down its fierce wick
And become a soft crimson
Above the wrought boughs of ancient trees
That you may look up to behold this vision
And O I see your angelic face turned my way

The Crowning

2009-06-22T03:14:00.000-07:00

A SOUNDLESS SONG

2009-05-22T06:27:00.000-07:00

A frozen wave from the roadside
Between the dreamy trees marching backwards

A goat mercilessly tearing
At the petticoats of a tree unable to flee

Bloated cows crunching mouthfuls
Of helplessly trembling verge side grass

A boy-man sitting on the coiling trunk
Of a fallen tree gone dry
Plucking on the fishing twine strings
Of a tin banjo
A soundless song for you as you drive past

RECONCILIATION

2009-04-24T03:48:00.000-07:00

(Dedicated to the FROM CONFRONTATION TO RECONCILIATION ART EXHIBITION to he held at the Bulawayo Art Gallery on the 30/04/09)

Please tell me
Is it that kite
Flying high in the sky
Out of reach
Of our hands, our hope
Whilst schools close
And our children
Learn to sell their bodies?

NJELELE

2009-04-24T03:39:00.000-07:00

(Dedicated to the FROM CONFRONTATION TO RECONCILIATION ART EXHIBITION AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY IN BULAWAYO 30/04/09)

Let all those that have desecrated
Against the sanctity of humanity -
Let them all come forward
To the all-seeing shrine of Njelele
Let them kneel at the alter of forgiveness
So the spirits might exorcise from their nightmares
That eternally accusing eye and the screams
Of all those helpless victims of yesterday
For a better today and tomorrow

The Green House Effect

2009-04-08T08:37:00.001-07:00

The mighty God
By divine hand
Beams us His blessings
From the heavens above
That they can warm our hearts
And drive out all those bad airs
Back to him for incineration
Before He can beam us
Another dose again
In answer to our daily prayer -
And,
Before those bad airs
Can get up to him
The rogue politicians
Trap them in the atmosphere
And bounce them
Back to us again
To play havoc
With our mental climates
Reducing us
To their fools
And utterers of hate speech.

The Green House Effect

2009-04-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

What?

2009-03-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen a baby doll
Black in colour, hair kinky?

Where have you seen its eyes roll
Up and down real winky freaky
And the hilarious squeak when on it I fall
My neighbour’s friend doll inky

Pinkie inky that’s what we call
Her that got splattered it’s a pity

Rosy pink cheek by black ink like the wall
Small nostalgic red bricks scarred and weepy
Streaky white from the black birds on the broken top

Where have you ever seen it
A baby doll black in colour, hair kinky?

The Crowning

2009-03-23T07:07:00.000-07:00