1 November 2008
One of the country's upcoming publishers, amaBooks, recently launched their long-awaited book compiled from the award winning Short Writings series, Long Time Coming.
The book that goes by the same name took the publishers two years to put together and features contributions from four internationally acclaimed writers.
It is a compilation of short stories and poems from 33 writers and is mostly about the country's political and socio-economic problems.
The international contributions came from four writers from the United Kingdom including Owen Sheers, who won the Wales Book of the Year for his book The Dust Dairies. He contributed a short story Safari for Long Time Coming.
Lloyd Robson, who attended last year's Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo and contributed the short story Rum and Still Waters in Long Time Coming is another writer recognised the world over. The story involves a narrator sitting in a bar in New York reminiscing about time spent in Bulawayo.
Other international writers featured in the book include Peter Finch, the chief executive officer for the Welsh Literature Bureau with the poem Looking for the Southern Cross.
There is also Ian Rowlands, whose short story Innocence is based on his visit to an Aids orphanage in Zimbabwe when he was in the country as part of an arts research visit organised by Wales Arts International.
AmaBooks director Brain Jones said the objective of the publication was to promote new writers with fresh ideas by publishing them alongside established writers.
"One of the objectives of the Short Writings series is to promote new writers with new ideas, by publishing them alongside more established writers," he said. "This tradition is continued in this book, with eight of the 33 writers being published for the first time."
Jones said the book took long to be published due to a number of problems including the constant power cuts affecting the country. He said at one time the power cuts resulted in the wiping off of stored documents in one of their computers.
The first book launched in the Short Writings series, Dancing with Life, won the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Award for Literature in English. It is a collection of short stories by Christopher Mlalazi and at one time became the featured book of the month for the African Books Collective.
Two books were also launched during September's Intwasa Festival, namely Intwasa Poetry with 43 poems by 15 different poets and Mambo Hills: Historical and Religious Significance, by Marieke Clarke.
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