British Council Zimbabwe Deputy Director Ignatius Mabasa believes writers have a weakness for stories and storytelling and a special love for words and idioms

Mabasa was born in Mt Darwin at Karanda Mission Hospital in Zimbabwe and grew up on his grandfather’s farm.

After his father passed away in 1975, Mabasa was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Harare, where he got his formal education.

Mabasa, who has written two award-winning novels, says he developed a love for words from his grandmother who was a great storyteller.

According to his website, Mabasa wrote his first serious novel in Form 01 at the age of 14 and none of his classmates believed that it was his.

‘It was a Shona composition Zuva Randisingakanganwe (The day I shall never forget).’ His Shona teacher, Ms Shelter Kaseke, was so impressed that she gave him 24 out of 25 and asked him to read the composition to the teachers in the staff room.

Mabasa’s first novel was Mapenzi (Fools) and his latest offering, Ndafa Here? (So what?), won the Outstanding Fiction Book award at the recent Zimbabwe National Merit Awards.

Asked what inspired him to write Ndafa Here?Mabasa says it was the plight of married women caught up in the politics of in-laws.

‘The problems caused by husbands leaving families behind to look for work in foreign lands. The disintegration of the family unit, the need to find answers to what love is.’

‘So what is a defiant statement and is used by the main character in the novel,’ he says.

‘She says: “After all the abuse and pain that I have gone through – I may have suffered but I am still standing and will move on.” Most women when they find themselves in abusive relationships tend to stick there until they are killed.’

‘This woman is saying, I have gone through things that were supposed to break me, but I will not be broken. She is saying, even if you have done what you have done to me, “so what?”’

British council programmes, such as Power in the Voice and Crossing Borders, make a difference in the lives of creative African children. Mabasa says working for the British Council has exposed him to these programmes and he has benefited from them.

‘Power in the Voice enabled me to learn so much from writers in the region and the UK. I even had the opportunity to do storytelling at the Hayward Gallery in the UK as a result of being friends with Charlie Dark, a UK Power in the Voice mentor.

‘I still keep those links going because writers are inspired by other writers as iron sharpens iron.’

For Mabasa, working for the British Council is an opportunity to learn and be challenged.

‘I see it as an opportunity to be inspired and to network when I interact with artists and institutions in my country, the region and the UK.’

Mabasa says he did not know he was writing award-winning books when he wrote them.

‘When you write, you don't write with an award in mind. You just write to tell a story, to give the voices inside you a space to be heard.’

Mabasa says he prefers writing in his mother tongue of Shona than in English.

He is working on recording his second Gospoetry (a fusion of gospel music and poetry) CD and rewriting the stories his grandmother told him when he was growing up.

He is also revising his third novel, Brood of Vipers.

Read Memory Chirere’s review of Ndafa Here?on this page. To read more about British Council events and programmes, please visit this page. Read our latest news here: News in Africa section.