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Petina Gappah

23 Mar, 12 tweets, 2 min read

I haven't shared a #PGSundayStory in a while, so here is one on a Tuesday.

My lockdown has about writing and collaborating. My brilliant writer friends Ignatius Mabasa and Tinashe Muchuri who edits me in Shona, will soon translate two of my books into Shona.

Details in April!

For now, I am delighted to share a previous Shona translation.

This was done by the poet Musaemura Zimunya, in an anthology edited for Weaver Press by him and Charles Mungoshi.

Mungoshi is my favourite Zim writer, so it was an honour to be included.

Here is the first page:

1/9 Gore rakakwira mitengo yezvese kupfuura kazana, Mudhara Vitalis Mukaro akambosendeka mudyandigere ndokutanga kuveza makofini. Mushure memwedzi mitanhatu, mbiri yake yakapararira ruviri, namba wani, senyanzvi mukuveza makofini mudunhu rose uyezve seshasha yekujaivha.

2/9 Munzvimbo yakadai seyedu iyi yokuti munhu wose zvake anotozivikanwa manhuhwiro emuhapwa make, chinhu chinonzi mbiri hachiedzeki nebote. Mupandawana, zita rese Gutu-Mupandawana Growth Point, inzvimbo hombe kupfuurawo mimwe misha asi ichiri kure nekuti inzi idhorobha.

3/9 Ini ndinoona sekuti anongove manatsamukanwa chete anobva hurumende iyo inodoma Mupandawana seGrowth Point vachiyedza kuvharidzira dambudziko redu netariro iyoyi.

4/9 Kunyange zvayo Mupandawana isiri kadhorobha, kana kuti chidhorobha, kwakave nemakuwerere makuru musi wakaparwa hwaro hwemaBlair Toilet matsva apo District Commissioner akatipakurira chirongwa chetariro yekuti Mupandawana ive dhorobha negore ra2065.

5/9 Hongu, nderimwe ramaGrowth Point mahombe munyika muno, asi uhombe hwacho ndehwemhomho dzevanhu vanomirira kutenga makofini, negurumwandera revechidiki vanobata mitsetse yokukwira mabhazi aWabuda Wanatsa anotsemura dzimbo dzaChimbetu akananga Harare.

6/9 Seni zvangu hauzombondioni ndakabata mutsetse wokubuda maMupandawana. Pandakangokandwa paSecondary yepano neMinistry, ndakatura mafemo ekutiza Harare inotemesa musoro nemabhebhi ayo anoti akabata haaregedze kusvika homwe yako yabvaruka, uye nzeve dzabooka nekushushwa.

7/9. Ino Mupandawana ndiyo nzvimbo kwayo, nzvimbo yokudzidza nokuongorora upenyu, chinhu chandinodavira kuti ndo-o jee ratakabikirwawo nemumwe mutsvinyi mukuru.

8/9 Ndosaka ndichiongorora zvangu magariro avanhu, nekuticha Geography kuvana vasina zvavo zvakawanda zvavanoda paGeography yacho kunze kweruzivo rwenhambo dziri pakati peMupandawana neLondon, Mupandawana neJohannesburg, kana kuti Mupandawana neHarare.

9/9 Dai zviine basa neni, ndainyatsovayeuchidza kuti chekumhanyira chaicho chaicho hapana, kumhunga hakuna ipwa, sekutaura kwaamai vangu.

Regai zviende, zvichangosanganawo nazvo.

For the full story, and other brilliant translated stories by Mungoshi and Zimunya, please buy MAZAMBUKO, the Shona anthology from Weaver Press.

Next month, I will uncover full details of my collaboration with Ignatius and Tinashe!

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Petina Gappah

@VascoDaGappah

1 Dec 20

To control a people, first study them. The Rhodesians excelled at this. This is NADA, the annual of the Rhodesian Internal Affairs Ministry. Published between 1923 and 1979, it had scholarly work on “native affairs” from anthropologists, sociologists, native commissioners etc.

In these volumes are essays on elopement in Shona law, notes on Amandebele regiments, the Nambiya people of Hwange, the Chihota Dynasty, kugarira customs, polygyny among the urban Shona and Ndebele, a history of the Hlengwe people, succession, the Korsten baskemakers (Mapostori.

I hope to collect all 56 issues. To an amateur social historian like me, this is gold dust. A lot of it is interpretation but even more is based on oral interviews. These men and women were thorough. My favorite NADA contributor is Sister Mary Aquinas Weinrich, a Catholic nun.

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Petina Gappah

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23 Oct 20

I may as well write about the things I miss. Like Venice! I’m researching an essay about Africa at the Venice Biennale. This is a picture I took of Gareth Nyandoro, Chikomborero Chazunguza and Masimba Hwati at the Zimbabwe pavilion in 2015. I call it “The Merchants of Venice”😀

I also call it “Zvibabest”😎. Behind them is work by Chiko Chazunguza. Chiko and I collaborated with Pearson publishing to bring Dambudzo Marechera’s MINDBLAST to an international audience. He did the cover art, I wrote the introduction! We did an official handover of the book

If I’ve a twin artist, it’s Gareth Nyandoro. I wanted to buy 2 paintings called 5RAND PAKADOMA and IHOHOHO NAMADZIBABA ISHMAIRI, whose name I’ve stolen for a play! But I can no longer afford him. Alas! I console myself with this beauty by Misheck Masamvu from Zim’s first Venice!

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Petina Gappah

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16 Aug 20

0/28 Here for you is a Sunday story from ROTTEN ROW called ‘Anna, Boniface, Cecelia Dickson’. It’s directly inspired by the children’s rhyme from my era and by Robert Altman’s take on Raymond Carver’s stories in SHORT CUTS. Enjoy.

1/28 If you come with me this way, straight past Town House on Speke Avenue, cross the flyover into Julius Nyerere, walk past Robert Mugabe and stop before we get to Kenneth Kaunda, we will find ourselves outside the downtown supermarket that used to be called Amato.

2/28 ‘Ndikati nzvee, kwaAmato, wandiona!’ They are long gone, the Brothers Amato, as are many of their brethren and indeed, there has not been a Bar Mitzvah here for more than ten years but that is all by the way.

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Petina Gappah

@VascoDaGappah

14 Aug 20

1/10 I’m sleepless with no hope of gaining any so I will do a quick social history of one of my favorite streets in Harare, the street called Rotten Row that is now supposed to be called Gamal Nasser Road. The name comes from French: Rotten Row is a corruption of Route de Roi.

2/10 This is because our Rotten Row is named after Rotten Row in London, established in 1690 to allow the double monarchs William and Mary to connect quickly across Hyde Park between two Palaces, Kensington and St James’s, hence it was called Route de Roi or “the King’s road”.

3/10 Over time Route de Roi became Rotten Row and it is now the only equestrian promenade in London. I had the pleasure of writing about Hyde Park and Rotten Row for the FT Life and Arts section back in 2015, as it’s one of my favorite places to sit and watch people and horses.

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Petina Gappah

@VascoDaGappah

12 Jul 20

Some fascinating history for you. Charwe (Nehanda) was hanged together with her brother Chibaga, and others who included Hwata and Gumboreshumba (Kaguvi).

The daughters of Chibaga and Gumboreshumba fled to the newly established Chishawasha mission to seek refuge.

Gumboreshumba’s daughter was called Dziripi. Chibaga’s daughter had been named by her aunt Charwe Nehanda, as their tradition demanded. Charwe gave this daughter the name Musodzi. Musodzi then took this name as her last name, was baptized Elizabeth and became Elizabeth Musodzi.

She grew up to be one of the first black women to receive a formal education in Rhodesia. She also went on to start a variety of women’s clubs. For her community work, she was honoured at a reception with King George VI when he made a royal visit to Southern Rhodesia in 1947.

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Petina Gappah

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7 Apr 20

@TheOrwellPrize

1/20 Those who know me know translaton is my big passion. And that I love Orwell. A few years ago, I started translating Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM. I got permission from Orwell’s estate @TheOrwellPrize and was joined by a bunch of people on Facebook. It was the most enormous fun.

2/20 We agreed to honour the main Shona variants in the dialect, so some animals speak in Manyika, others in Karanga, some Zezuru, and others Slang. So of the pigs, Squealor is Manyika, Major is Karanga, Napoleon and Snowball Zezuru. The narration is in neutral Standard Shona.

3/20 Here is part of the first chapter, which I translated myself with Tichashe Muchuri. As you see, "Meja" speaks in the Karanga variant. Next week, I will post a section of Squealor speaking in Manyika, and the sheep speaking in Slang, so you see what we tried to do.

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