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 Ignatius Mabasa is a storyteller, poet, novelist, and preacher at his local church. He is known for his love for writing in his mother language – Shona, the majority language of Zimbabwe. He is described as “the top new voice” of Shona literature by Martin Goodman in The Guardian. Ignatius feels strongly about the use of the vernacular. He writes, “There is need to decolonise the mind of our people and educate them that no language is superior or expresses issues better than another. Our people love and promote English at the expense of their languages. The result is a sad one where we have language-less children – with a serious identity crisis.”
Besides being a proponent of Shona wisdom and storytelling, Ignatius is an award-winning novelist. Fanuel Muhwati, an academic at the University of Zimbabwe, had this to say about Ignatius’ first novel Mapenzi (Fools) published in 1999, “Mabasa identifies with the vitality and hope that is synonymous with Shona epistemological foundations. His vision is not premised on the interrogation and revision of Shona oral technology. Rather, it revolves around the conceptualisation of oral art forms as a potent and life-affirming curriculum.”
The novel Mapenzi won the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association Best Shona Novel of the Year award in 1999. It is a prescribed Advanced Level School set text. Ignatius’s second novel, Ndafa Here? (So What?), published in 2008, won the Zimbabwe 2009 National Arts Merit Award in the outstanding fiction book category before winning 1st Prize for Shona literature in the 2009 Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association’s Writing and Publishing Award.
Educated in Oslo, Norway, Ignatius has been a visiting USA Fulbright Scholar in 1999-2000 at suburban Chicago schools: North Central College, College of Du Page, College of Lake County and William Rainey Harper College. He recently participated in the San Francisco International Poetry Festival where he had the honour of sharing the stage with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, visit the City Lights Book Store as well as the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Ignatius has just finished writing his third novel titled Vana Venyoka (Brood of Vipers). He is translating Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga into Shona, as well as working on recording the second CD of his special kind of poetry with music (“gospoetry”). He has just published a collection of mordernised folktales called The Man, shaggy Leopard and Jackal with Lion Press, UK.
Apart from being an artist, Ignatius works as Deputy Director for the British Council in Zimbabwe. He is married to Conelia and is father of two boys.
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Shona version
Mhango
Mukadzi uya, mai vaNyevero
Ane zino rine mhango, ramutambudza.
Murume wake akaenda London kare kare
Nyevero achiri kuyamwa, iko zvino ave kuchikoro
Tingavape mhosva here mai vaNyevero
Kuti mhango dzavashaisa hope?
Mai Nyevero vanyatsosarudza pekugara
Kundigarira beya rakaisa musana panze
Vachiyanika magumbeze ezvidya zvitsvuku
Vanyenama vachiti, “Vana Mhizha miti izere
Asi matemo enyu ane ngura, asakara, akagomara!”
Vandichonya, ndokukumba marokwe avo vachienda
Vachiseka sebere rinofara mumhindo yerima.
Usiku vanonorara kwebenzi riya Gandari.
Vanomudii Gandari benzi remunhu
Akabatwa nezuro aine mukadzi waticha!
Aids iyika ine mavara seshato, iguhu, chipoko
Asi ichatikuhumura semashizha .............
English version
Cavities
That woman, the mother of Nyevero
Has a tooth that needs a filling.
Her husband has been in London
Since Nyevero was 2, now she is 7
Who can blame the mother of Nyevero
For having so many cavities?
Mai Nyevero, carefully chooses her seat.
She sits carelessly opposite me,
Exposing wads of tan thighs, and grins
“Look Mhizha, the forest is full of trees
But your axes are old, rusty and blunt”
She winks at me, gathers her skirts and swishes off,
Laughing like a happy hyena in the dead of the night.
Night finds her in bed with that fool Gandari.
But woman, Gandari was caught last week
Naked in bed, with the new teacher’s wife.
This Aids – python, myth or phantom
Will surely finish us all off .............
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Shona version
MunaSamora Machel Avenue
MunaSamora Machel Avenue
Ndakatsika vamwe amai nemota
Asi handina kumira, ndakatiza
Ndakavaona pagirazi remumota
Mai vachibidirika nemarwadzo
Pedzisire vati pfau-pfau, favava, zii-i
Chingwa chavo chiri parutivi pavo
Asi handina kukwanisa kumira.
Nekutyira hupenyu hwangu
Ndakafambisa mota mubvonyongera
Ndichitiza bishi nebesanwa
Ndichivavarira kuenda kumba
Ndokunge kwakanga kuchinemba
MunaSamora Machel Avenue
Ndakatsika vamwe amai nemota
Asi handina kumira, ndakatiza
Mabara epfuti akanga achiridza miridzo
Vanhu vakanga vachitiza nehupenyu hwavo
Kwaive kutanga kwechimwe chimurenga here?
Hondo ine ropa, rufu nekuparadza…..
MunaSamora Machel Avenue
Ndakatsika vamwe amai nemota
Asi handina kumira, ndakatiza
Ndakavaona vachikuyiwa negonyeti
Ruwoko rukadambuka, musoro ukaputika
Mwoyo wangu wakajuja ropa navo
Asi handina kumira, ndakatiza.
English version
Along Samora Machel
Along Samora Machel Avenue,
I knocked a woman down
But I didn’t stop.
I saw her toss and turn
In my rear view mirror
Before lying still, twisted
Next to her loaf of bread,
But I couldn’t stop.
Fearing the crowd would get me,
I drove on in the confusion
To flee from the chaos
To try and get home
If home was still there.
Along Samora Machel Avenue,
I knocked a woman down
But couldn’t stop.
Bullets were flying
People were dying.
Another mass uprising?
Along Samora Machel Avenue
I knocked a woman down
But I didn’t stop.
A heavy truck reduced her to pulp
And this was no fiction.
I bled with her – profusely
But I just couldn’t stop!
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Shona version
Hwayi nemapere
Hwayi hwayi huyai
Tinotya
Munotyeiko
Mapere
Mapere akaenda Hwedza........
Ndasuwa mhepo yakachena
Mhepo isina hutsi hwemota nefodya,
Ndasuwa mapani nemaruva esango
Zvakasubvurwa nemidhuri mirefu-refu
Ndinoona vana vakachenuruka mumigwagwa
Vachitamba, vachitandanisana nekubvutirana
Condom ravanhonga vakafuridza sechibharuma
Makondomu akasimba, haabvaruke
Anokwanisa kutakura malitre matatu emvura…
Ndinovheyesa meso angu serwaivhi
Ndichitsvaga nyuchi, mikonikoni nemashavishavi
Ndichitsvaga rukodzi runozeya mumakore
Asi chandinoona ihangaiwa dzinodya zvihwitsi
Ndinoona gunguwo rakaruma gaba reyoghurt
Ndinoshevedzera, munhu, munhu
Asi hapana anondidaira mubishi rino
Hapana wandinowana mumakondomu muno
Muzere zvitai-tai nema ringing tones
Magweta, maprofessor nedzimwe nyanzvi
Dzinofunga kuti munhu ari mumabhuku
Ndiye mumwe chete neanofamba...
Ndiyani iyeye akati mapere akaenda Hwedza?
English version
Concrete and Plastic
I miss the open air
In the open fields.
I miss the stretching space
That was usurped,
By high rise glass buildings.
I see ashen street kids
Playing and fighting
For an inflated used condom.
“Strong, dependable and
Can hold up to 3 litres of water”
I look around me
For the coloured butterfly
And the soaring eagle,
But the city has created
Urban modern birds.
The candy eating pigeon
The hamburger-munching crow.
I miss the human being
In all this concrete and plastic
Where robots and computers
Professors and talk-show hosts
Telemarketers and experts
Tell me what is best for me
Even if they don't know me.
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Shona version
Wonekano
Tinofamba zvisina ruzha, tichienda kumakuva
Isu, zvitunha zvakabatirana bhokisi rine mitumbi yedu
Taisimbove nehupenyu
Nehupfumi hwainhuwirira
Nemari yaitenga uchisara neimwe muhomwe.
Nhasi tave munda uzere makuva
Makuva matsva, azere zvitunha zvipenyu
Nemichinjikwa yetumiti twakakokonyara.
Makunguwo ari pamabiko
Ari kutumbura zvitunha.
Icho chachoborwa ziso
Icho chachoborwa mhino....
Makunguwo ari kuimba
Zvapera, zvapera, hapana achachema
Hapana achaviga, hapana achataura
Kana ivhu rekufusira vafi hapachina.
English version
Epitaph
We silently walk to the cemetery
We, pall bearers of our own coffins
We used to have a life
And an economy
Running on dollars and sense
Now we are a graveyard
Full of shallow graves.
Mounds of fresh earth
And crooked stick crosses.
Ravens disembowel corpses
Singing a harsh type of dirge
No dignity, no rites, no tears
No pastor, no speech, no soil!
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