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The Documentary: Women writing Zimbabwe

Women writing Zimbabwe

29/07/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Women writing Zimbabwe

Tawanda Mudzonga explores why Zimbabwe has produced so many renowned women writers

Reporter Tawanda Mudzonga explores why Zimbabwe has produced so many talented and renowned women writers.

Look at any fiction prize recently and odds are that you will find a Zimbabwean woman nominated, be it Tsitsi Dangaremba, NoViolet Bulawayo or Petina Gappah. But forget the glitz of the Booker, what is the situation inside Zimbabwe? Reporter Tawanda Mudzonga takes us on a literary tour of Zimbabwe to find out why it has produced so many talented and renowned women writers.  

Tawanda speaks to emerging authors like Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Valerie Tagwira, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Sue Nyathi among others to explore what their writing can tell us about modern Zimbabwe, a country where false narratives proliferate, and public speech is often controlled. These are fearless women who write about violence, love, pain, and politics and try to tell the complicated story of the past and the present of a country which may only be four decades old, but whose people and history stretch far further. 

Tawanda asks these authors what inspires them? What challenges do they face because they are women? And what risks do they run, writing about difficult subjects in a country where the political situation is ever more restrictive and freedom of speech increasingly under threat? And finally, she asks whether the conditions still exist to nurture a new generation of women writers in Zimbabwe?

Presenter: Tawanda Mudzonga
Producer: Fleur Macdonald
Executive producer: Melissa FitzGerald 
A Zinc Audio production for the BBC World Service

(Photo: Reporter Twanda Mudzonga (bottom left) and the Harare Book Club. Credit: Fleur Macdonald)

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