Creator
Percy Zvomuya
Percy Zvomuya is a writer and critic who has written for numerous publications, including Chimurenga, the Mail & Guardian, Moto in Zimbabwe, the Sunday Times and the London Review of Books blog. He is a co-founder of Johannesburg-based writing collective The Con and, in 2014, was one of the judges for the Caine Prize for African Writing.
The haunting beauty of Admire Kamudzengerere’s art
The underground operator of Zimbabwean art — who is ‘present and confident — but not loud’
Songs of freedom in a dancehall in Zimbabwe
Bass culture is as old as Zimbabwe itself
The paper that sees and speaks
The search for an elusive West African writer accused of plagiarism comes full circle
Dare to read his different novels
A whole book written in a single sentence? Author challenges with both style and content
Deadly medicine: Poison and warfare
Imraan Coovadia’s new book connects the programmes of poisoning in Rhodesia and South Africa in five essays about the circumstances and men at the centre of their making
Dambudzo Marechera: The biggest tree in the savannah
Dambudzo Marechera continues to nourish Zimbabweans’ cultural lives — and literary tourists from northern climes
In praise of African art: How Shona sculpting emerged
How Shona stone art came into its own after independence
Babylon By Bus: How Bob Marley influenced Dennis Morris’ photographic career
The photographer got his first big break touring with The Wailers in the 1970s, after skipping school to meet the band
‘Before Night Falls’: Reinaldo Arenas breaks down (in) Fidel Castro’s Cuba
Reinaldo Arenas’s memoir reveals the contradiction of a revolutionary society ruled by an autocrat
A modicum of release: Lumumba’s remains return home at last
Sixty years after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the DRC’s first prime minister, his remains will be returned from Belgium
Linton Kwesi Johnson gave poetry back to the people
The 2020 winner of the PEN Pinter Prize, LKJ’s poetry puts the ignominy and hardship of the black experience in Britain front and centre in words that echo across the decades
Of drumming, Tony Allen, Charles Mungoshi and my cousin
Drummers have the power to allow Zimbabweans to commune with their ancestors, and none more so than those with elevated talent on the skins.
Bridging the black Atlantic in jazz
The collaboration between Thomas Mapfumo and Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, broke new ground and should have grown cult status
We free our people with music
A snapshot of musical moments (and mishaps) as they intersected with Zimbabwe throughout the decades.
Soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionary: Marley and the birth of Zimbabwe
The iconic concert to celebrate independence in Zimbabwe would prove to contain a warning