A NEW book titled Sworn to the Depths of Inyangani written by four young writers who participated in a relay authoring contest held this year is set to be launched in Bulawayo today.
BY LIFE & STYLE REPORTER
Collabowriters co-ordinator Kudzai Chikomo said the contest was held in January this year under the auspices of Multimedia Box in partnership with the British Council and Zimbabwe German Society.
Chikomo said although they received 252 entries, they selected the best four stories, which were written by Lindiwe Dhlakama and Banabas Karuma from Harare as well as Takatso Sibanda and Rejoice Moyo from Bulawayo.
“They were commissioned by Multimedia Box, who co-ordinated the Collabowriters project, to write a book using relay authoring better known as exquisite corpse. The book will be made available and free to download on the Collabowriters website, www.collabowriters.org,” he said.
He said Collabowriters was an innovative project connecting writers of different backgrounds to collaborate in writing creative fiction one chapter at a time.
“Writer A does first chapter, writer B reads the first chapter and composes chapter 2, Writer C reads A and B and builds Chapter 3 and so on. The exciting challenge the authors have, is to develop a story in the absence of set structure,” he said.
He said the idea behind the project was to promote artistic collaboration, creative expression and cultural dialogue using literary arts.
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“The aim is to create synergies between young artists of different backgrounds to work together on a fiction novel which will be published digitally and in print format,” he said, adding that the project fostered cooperation rather than competition.
The book tells the story of a college student, Elisha, who begins having extraordinary dreams and later discovers there is more to this realm than he has always assumed. In the dream, an old woman visits him with a set of inexplicable instructions which throw Elisha’s orderly life into disarray. After first ignoring the dreams, they start manifesting in real life, forcing him to travel to an Inyanga against his parents’ wishes.
Together with his friend, Takudzwa, they uncover secrets about Elisha and his family that they never imagined.
