A young Bulawayo author, Ndzimu Unami Emmanuel, has written two books chronicling the history of the BuKalanga people, a tribe existing in many remote parts of Matabeleland.
Emmanuel said one of the books, The Rebirth of BuKalanga, set to be released on May 1, traces the history of BuKalanga, “showing that the Kalanga people were responsible for the establishment of the civilisations of Great Zimbabwe, Mapungubgwe, Khami and that they have been settled in this country, Botswana and in the Limpopo Province for about 2 000 years now”.
“This is my first book and I have written four books in total due for release this year,” he said.
“The other ones are Towards the Renaissance of BuKalanga, which is a companion volume to The Rebirth of BuKalanga. The other two are on entrepreneurship.”
Emmanuel said he was inspired to write by the desire to retrace his identity as he was of Kalanga origin.
“The book is essentially all about history and politics that argues that Zimbabwe is not only composed of the Shona and the Ndebele. The people of BuKalanga in Zimbabwe are identified as Shona and sometimes as Ndebele, yet they are not fully accepted in these communities as evidenced by the suppression of their languages and cultures. I then sought to find out where exactly we belong, and what our history is.”
Emmanuel said the book would be available on Kindle as an e-book version and on Amazon on May 1 this year.
“A hard copy will follow thereafter. I am self-publishing the book, meaning I have to finance the production process from design to printing, for which I need R64 000 or $8 000 for the printing of the first 5 000 copies. But the plan is that the hard copy will follow within two months of the release of the Kindle edition,” he said.
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“Readers in Europe, North America and Australia will be able to purchase the book from Amazon, Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble and other online bookstores. Those in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa will be able to purchase the book from Kalahari.com and Exclusives online bookstores.”
Emmanuel said he started working on the book in 2009.
