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Kireni Zulu launches debut novel

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RENOWNED marabi music crooner Kireni Zulu has published his debut Shona book titled Miromo Yavakuru that was launched at a colourful ceremony at a Harare hotel last week.

RENOWNED marabi music crooner Kireni Zulu has published his debut Shona book titled Miromo Yavakuru that was launched at a colourful ceremony at a Harare hotel last week.

BY WINSTONE ANTONIO

The 102-page novel which incorporates three languages — Shona, Ndebele and English — was co-edited by Paul Mushumbi and James Chitamba and published by ZPH Publishers.

Zulu told NewsDay that he wrote the book using his cellphone and said he had written seven other Shona manuscripts in the same way.

Kireni Zulu Kireni Zulu

National Arts Council of Zimbabwe director Elvas Mari, who was the guest of honour, said it took patience and self-discipline to author a book.

“Kireni has been resilient in his career and that’s all what art requires one to be,” Mari said.

He challenged publishers to make room for indigenous languages as the Constitution now officially recognised 16 local languages.

The first batch of copies to be auctioned netted $1 000, with the top two individual bidders parting with $230 and $200 respectively for the autographed copies during auctioning that was conducted by the master of ceremony Tendai Maduwa.

Kireni told NewsDay that he initially wanted to publish his first script, Chisi Hachieri Musi Wacharimwa with Literature Bureau in 1988, but the company shut down before publication.

“After realising that I was not doing much in terms of educating people through music, I decided to venture into novel writing so that my message will reach masses. It took me three months to write this book and with perfecting it was half a year,” Kireni said.

He said the book was rejected by College Press in the 1990s and he was forced to rework it and he was happy that, almost 22 years later, ZPH Publishers accepted it.

He said he was more of an actor than a musician that in his forthcoming live shows they will be complemented with theatre.

“As a way of pushing my works, during the breaks at our live shows, there will be no music by the DJs, but will do theatre for the crowd, just like Mukadota used to perform drama after a musical performance,” he said.

Zulu said he started off as a journalist with Kwayedza in 1990 after being a correspondent for the vernacular paper since 1988.

He has so far recorded seven albums namely Panyika Pano, Mazai Adhimba, Nyevero, Vhura Chivharo, Mupata Wachidembo, Marabi Music and Sekuru.