Spreading The Gift of Zimbabwean Literature

Literature has played a magical role in our lives. We wouldn’t have had the privilege of seeing the world, if it wasn’t for the way books made us fearless.

This lockdown period started when Oxford was still grey. As the weeks progress, Oxford is coming to full bloom. The trees outside my window are flowering and the leaves are becoming more full and lush. Transitioning to living this new life as a student has been difficult and interesting.

I found that I missed my friends, going to pubs and catching up on how we are all doing at the end of the week. But now I found myself being able to individually call them and connect more than we did sometimes at the pub. Fortunately for me I no longer have classes, but I have had exams and taking exams with your bed only a few feet away has been a challenging experience and a great lesson in self discipline.

A silver lining for me is the time this lockdown has given me to finally pursue projects and endeavors I always used to say I did not have enough time for. A week ago my friend, Geraldine, and I launched a book drive to raise money to buy books for a highschool in our hometown.

The idea came about as Geraldine and I were having one of our Quaracatch up calls, and we started talking about how many children were now at home and possibly not going to be back in school for a year or so. We also then spoke about how fiction had kept us company growing up in a small town called Triangle in Zimbabwe. There is not much to do in Triangle but fiction opened up the world for us, it made us bold and courageous, and so we were like it would be nice to pay that forward: the gift of literature.

We are now partnering with a local publisher called Weaver Press and we will use all the money we raise to buy local fiction as a way to ensure that local publishers stay afloat in these trying times. If you want to support us or come along and follow our journey please follow us on Instagram @Thandabantubookdrive or on our Facebook page Thandabantubookdrive or check out our GoFundMe Page at ThandabantuBookDrive.