'amaBooks at ZIBF in Bulawayo 2013

’amaBooks are at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in Bulawayo on Friday 22and Saturday 23 March. The theme of this year’s fair is ‘ZIBF@30: Enabling Creativity, Writing, Publishing and Reading for Africa’s Growth’. We will have a stand throughout the fair at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, displaying not only our own publications but also those of other publishers, including Weaver Press in Harare and Jonathan Ball and Pan Macmillan in South Africa.

ZIBF in Harare 2011

On Friday afternoon, at the end of the Fair’s Indaba, we will donate around 400 books to libraries in and around Bulawayo. The distribution of books to rural libraries, and to Bulawayo Municipal Libraries, will be organised through the National Free Library’s Rural Libraries Programme. The donation has been supported by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa.

Books to be donated include: This September Sun, Bryony Rheam’s debut novel, which won a Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association ‘Best First Book’ award and is a set book for ZIMSEC ‘A’ level Literature in English; Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe, which was chosen by New Internationalist as one of their two ‘Best Books of 2009’; Dancing with Life: Tales from the Township, by Christopher Mlalazi, which won a National Arts Merit Award and an Honourable Mention at the Noma Awards for African Publishing; John Eppel’s novel, Hatchings, which was chosen for the Times Literary Supplement series on ‘The Most Significant Books to have come out of Africa’; Deon Marcus’ poetry collection; Sonatas, which won both a National Arts Merit Award and a Zimbabwe Book Publishers Award; Intwasa Poetry, a collection of poems by local and international poets who have read at the Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo; and Pathisa Nyathi’s Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association Award winning Zimbabwe’s Cultural Heritage.

Two of ’amaBooks’ recent publications are also included. For the first time the Caine Prize for African Writing anthology has been published in Zimbabwe, the 2012 edition being entitled African Violet. Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe is the fifth book in the ’amaBooks Short Writings series, which started in 2003 with Short Writings from Bulawayo. Where to Now? was co-published with Parthian Books in the United Kingdom, and is to be translated into Ndebele, the translated version will be available in Zimbabwe later this year.

Friday evening, at 7pm in the Gallery, will see the awards ceremony for the Freedom Poetry Competition, organised jointly by ’amaBooks and Poetry Bulawayo. 78 poems have been submitted for the competition, with entries from across Zimbabwe and from South Africa, Nigeria and Europe. This will take place during a literary evening organized by ZIBF.

Photograph shows Jane Morris, Hosea Tokwe, Beaven Tapureta, Ignatius Mabasa and Fungai Machirori at the 'amaBooks stand