25 February 2022
Charlene Thabisile Mguni
The National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) has announced their nominees for the 20th edition of the event.
Amongst the list, is a third year student from the National University of Science and Technology, NUST.
The NAMAS are an annual Zimbabwean Awards showcase curated by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe(NACZ) in recognition of outstanding achievements by artists country wide.
Among this year’s nominees is Kwanele Khulamo aka Mntungwa KaMbulazi, an author and poet who released his first book titled Who Killed Grandfather.
The book was released last year in June and features a collection of poems.
The odes are all about love, culture and death.
He has been nominated under the Outstanding Poetry Book with two other poets, Ruth Tsopotsa and Batsirai Chigama.
Mntungwa KaMbulazi said he wrote the book in honour of his grandfather who passed away and also to revive for the lost norms in the African culture.
“It is a book that I dedicated to the loss of culture and other norms first as Ndebeles and secondly as black people in general.
“It is represented by grandfather who was cherished as the pillar of wisdom in all the families back then, the man who has seen it all.
Grandfathers used to hunt, go to war and engage in all cultural, political and religious practices in a community, hence their wisdom was not underated. When you lose a grandfather you lose all that I have mentioned above.”
Mtungwa KaMbulazi, was born in Filabusi in 1997, and attended school in Tswanka, Sikhathini and Thekwane High school.
He fell in love with poetry at a tender age, writing his poems in his mother tongue (ISiNdebele)
“I have been writing poems in my mother tongue, but I realized it limits my audience.
It was infact my friend Stanely Mushava who is the back bone of all my poetry who advised me to translate one of my poems into English.
That one poem had a breakthrough and was published by Gourd of Consciousness team on The Standard newspaper and ever since I have been writing in English and compiled my poems which gave birth to my anthology #who killed grandfather?”
Since the release of the book, he said that he has received massive support from his friends, who have advertised for him freely, the community members, lectures and people from outside the country asking for his book.
“Being Nominated for NAMA awards is a very great achievement for me. It has boosted confidence in my writings, it is like a voice of a kid abandoned in a desert, crying hopelessly and a mother just appears from nowhere to rescue, it is a prayer of longing that has been answered. I’m humbled and speechless…
If my talent as a writer can be recognized to such a big level it means I’ve taken a right journey and I have answered the right call”, he exclaimed!.
The awards which cover works produced between 1 December 2019 to 30 November 2021 are to be held on the 26th of February at Rainbow Towers hotel in Harare.
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