Branching Streams Flow in the Dark

by Charles Mungoshi

BOOK

105 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 31, 2013

About the author

Charles Mungoshi was a Zimbabwean writer. His works included short stories and novels in both Shona and English. He also wrote poetry. He has a wide range, including anti-colonial writings and children's books. He wrote about post-colonial oppression as well. The awards he won included the Noma Award in 1992 and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region) twice in the years 1988 and 1998. Two of his novels, one in Shona and the other in English, both published in 1975 won the International PEN Awards. He was married to an actress Jesesi Mungoshi.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without any iota of exaggeration, Charles Mungoshi belongs to the top drawer of Africa’s creative writers. A Zimbabwean, he has published many novels and short stories both in English and Shona (his Mother Tongue). He has won a number of top international awards over the years.

This book (his very latest) and one which reportedly took him a long time to write, and even publish I intriguing in many ways.

In this novel, we are confronted with issues of mortality, sickness, decay, lassitude…and concomitant philosophical fulminations.

The author is a superb poet, extraordinarily adroit with his use of diction, imagery, prosody, etc. This is very evident in this work and quite startling many times.

Here, characters like Serina Maseko, Saidi, and Fungisai loom large and become part of the warp and weft of the author’s themes, and vision.

This is a dense creative narrative that makes one to ponder on many things – like the very vista of life itself, existentialism, the inevitability of routine and death; the foibles and vanity of this world…this work is the very essence of skilled wordsmith, Charles Mungoshi.

[Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Read

Tells the stories of many a life led. A story that holds up a mirror to all of life in the physical and in the emotional journeys of the characters