The Newsbearer
The Newsbearer
He died
For bearing the news
They didn’t want people to hear.
by Lawrence Hoba
Writers & witnesses: a writer’s perspective on journeys in reading & writing zimbabwe
Paper Presented to ZIBF 2009 Indaba: Reading & Writing Zimbabwe:
I am told, by both my father and maternal uncle (after whom I get my so called English and Christian name: Stanley- it’s actually Jewish), that even as a boy I used to be fascinated by words written on paper. I would, according to them, pick up any scrap of written matter, whether it be the remains of a book, newspaper or magazine wherever I had found it and lovingly lug it home and put away somewhere safe. Why, they would ask, and I would shrug, saying, I want to keep it so that I can read it in future. This was of course, during my preliterate days. A memory I do have from those days is one of me, sitting on the veranda of my father’s store at Nyangavi Township in Guruve, with a book that belonged to one of my elder brothers, who were already in school, on my lap, a scholarly frown on my brow, lips moving, a finger slowly tracing word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence. This always took the people who came by to shop by surprise: “Mwana uyu akutogona kuverenga?” (“Is this child able to read already?)”. They would laugh when they were told that it was only a ruse on my part, but little did they or myself know that this was a sign of a great passion for reading and inevitably writing that already lay embedded somewhere deep in my blood and would eventually blossom as I grew older. Read more
Not yet uhuru
For as far as concerned i are,
We are not close but far.
We are as if in the right way
But we are nicely drifting astray.
Shoko
Shoko
Shoko
Kana rataurwa
Rine warakananga
Rinoita sebara
Ranangiswa pachipfuva
Rinobaya.
Ndizvo zvaunozoona
Kana ari mukuru
Anangwa naro
Oshandisa simba
Kunyararadza aritaura
Shoko.
by Lawrence Hoba
An expert blessed with a curse
I hate life just ask Eve,
I rejoice when souls leave.
When lives end i begin,
I’m a spell my victims are dug-in.
I take souls with expertise,
Flexy bodies i simply freese.
On halting lives i am a chief
I devulge and pounce i leave grief.
You feel me each single day
I will meet you in some way
Whether guns you escaped alive
I’m inevitable when i arrive.
I take you once without a chase.
I am an expert blessed with a curse.
With Joy I don’t cry
God’s love is wide like sea,
Once was blind but now i see.
With joy i kissed the blue sky,
But with joy never did i cry.
Whether i own all silver and gold,
Whether i meet my dead friend of old,
Might i become a King under the sun
My tears of joy don’t sip for fun.
But when my heart is sturbed with words
Tears of anger flock out like birds.
Any words that are inflictious and sarcastic,
Leave my eyes in sorrowfull and pathetic.
Whether i’m promised wings to fly,
Ecstacy and bliss may lift me high
But as long i’m in this earth of sorrows
My tears of joy will never kiss my brows.
Its because food never healed hunger.
All joy is vanity beyond stood anger.
When my joy will forever endure
Tears down my cheek i will ensure
