MAUREEN Dangarembizi, a Zimbabwean author based in South Africa, says history should be revisited and corrected since a lot of literature portrays Africans as inferior.
BY KENNEDY NYAVAYA
The extensive history of the African people is usually said to be devoid of some important facts which were removed either unknowingly by foreign writers or deliberately by some in a ploy to hide fundamental pieces of it.
Dangarembizi told NewsDay in a telephone interview recently that she had plans in place to release a series of books based on Southern African historical fiction in the pre-colonial era.
“People do not really understand Africa, I will be writing an African historical series next year. This series will focus on Southern African historical fiction in the pre-colonial era unlike my latest book and two book series I am launching in September,” she said.
While a greater African population has generally embraced this as a perpetual fate, Dangarembizi, who uses the pseudonym Grace Ashley, said Africans had for long been misunderstood and a lot has been left out their history because they were not telling their own story.
“Africa had a thriving economy before the colonial era, the society complemented the environment instead of raping the land and also had primitive but effective scientific methods,” she said.
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“The black man is usually portrayed as more of a servant, not a person character who can drive the plot of a story line but the black man has completely redefined himself now.”
Although the reading culture is said to have dwindled in the country due to economic hardships, she acknowledged the view that buying books now seems a luxury, but said the Internet was the only solace for authors’ material to reach the audience.
“With the Internet and websites like Amazon the world has shrunk providing writers with a wider readership,” she said.
Dangarembizi dropped her office job to pursue her ambitions and recently released her debut book The Sigil she is set to launch another one titled Angels Game of Destiny next month.
