The Imagine Africa 500 speculative fiction book that was published by Pan African Publishers Limited was finally unveiled on Sunday at Kwa Haraba Arts Gallery in Blantyre.<\/p>\n
The ceremony which was climaxed by a cocktail attracted the presence of among others musicians, writers, poets, journalists and academicians.<\/p>\n
There was a reading during the unveiling of the book from some of the Malawian authors, who have contributed their stories and they are Muthi Nhlema, Tuntufye Simwimba, Hagai Magai and Aubrey Chinguwo.<\/p>\n
It was an event that saw the gathering engaging in a discussion of various issues surrounding the writing world which included marketing and distribution as well as online publishing.<\/p>\n
Some quarters have said Malawian writers are failing to stand out on the international platform and that \u201cour writing has crumbled.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Muthi, who is also last year\u2019s winner of the Malawi Writers Union (Mawu)\/FMB Short Story Awards, said Malawian writers are writing interesting books and that readers need to come out and give them support.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to appeal to fellow writers to keep writing and most importantly explore new horizons and explore new types of telling stories because readers have become more sophisticated and want value for money and so let\u2019s give them value for money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nhlema said there have been criticisms on both circles with writers criticising readers that they don\u2019t read while readers have said writers don\u2019t write enough and that their writings are not \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut with all that said, Malawians are reading but not Malawian content. They are reading stuff that is from outside and so the challenge is up to us writers to make people start reading Malawian content again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The award-winning writer, whose story is One Wit\u2019 This Place <\/em>said Malawian writers have to strive to give people good packaged books and stories that are well written.<\/p>\n \u201cSo in the unveiling of this book today is a small step in the right direction. I am very excited that the book is finally out. It has been an 18 months journey and I am happy that my story is part of the many stories in the anthology,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Managing Editor of the Imagine Africa 500, Shadreck Chikoti, who is also Story Club founder, said it was encouraging that the unveiling received a good turn up.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was all about celebrating futuristic writing and response from people has been good. Through this anthology we want to increase base when it comes to readership and we have so far received an overwhelming response on different international platforms,\u201d said Chikoti.<\/p>\n He said that the unveiling of the book is a huge step towards growing writing taking into consideration that more Malawian writers are part of the anthology and have rubbed shoulders with other well known writers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have talent which can do well and we are getting there and we should not limit ourselves but strive to be on the same page with the rest of Africa and the world.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a country we need to celebrate art and literature and realise that we cannot progress without literature and nation that doesn\u2019t write cannot progress,\u201d said author of Azotus the Kingdom<\/em>.<\/p>\n Other stories in the book include Tiseke Chilima\u2019s Women Are From Venus<\/em>, Simwimba\u2019s Tiny Dots<\/em>, Chinguwo\u2019s Closer to the Sun<\/em>, Magai\u2019s Those Without Sin <\/em>and Dilma Dila\u2019s Snake Blood<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Imagine Africa 500 speculative fiction book that was published by Pan African Publishers Limited was finally unveiled on Sunday at Kwa Haraba Arts Gallery in Blantyre. The ceremony which was climaxed by a cocktail attracted the presence of among others musicians, writers, poets, journalists and academicians. There was a reading during the unveiling of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26530,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26527\/revisions\/26530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}