Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A conversation between Lucy Mushita and Kidi Bebey at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 24/01/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
Fifteen years after the publication of seminal work Chinongwa, author Lucy Mushita reflects with journalist Kidi Bebey upon the state of Zimbabwe at the time of writing and today.
Lucy Mushita’s Chinongwa is a riveting and emotional coming-of-age story set in rural 1920s Zimbabwe. A young girl seeking to understand the boundaries between family myth and cultural mythology finds herself cast into a situation of nightmarish proportions. As the violence surrounding her is increasingly wrought upon her, the fantastic intervenes as a way to understand and cope with her reality. Ultimately, the protagonist translates her own life into a mythical register, refusing to succumb to the raw, magicless cruelty of the world. Mushita spoke in conversation at the Library with journalist Kidi Bebey about the writing of this work and its enduring relevance throughout the multiple transformations of present-day Zimbabwe.
About the speakers:
Lucy Mushita grew up in a small village in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Six years after the 1980 end of apartheid, she settled in Nancy, France, where she started writing Chinongwa, her first novel. She also taught Business English in multinationals, universities and grandes écoles. Chinongwa was first published in S. Africa in 2008, then translated into French (by Elise Argaud) and published by Actes-Sud in 2012.
Born and raised in Paris, Kidi Bebey is the daughter of the late Cameroonian artist and composer, Francis Bebey. A writer and journalist, her novel, My Kingdom for a Guitar, (translated from French by Karen Lindo and published by Indiana University Press in 2021) is inspired by her family history. Currently, Kidi writes online weekly chronicles on African literature in Le Monde.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
A conversation between Lucy Mushita and Kidi Bebey at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 24/01/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.
Fifteen years after the publication of seminal work Chinongwa, author Lucy Mushita reflects with journalist Kidi Bebey upon the state of Zimbabwe at the time of writing and today.
Lucy Mushita’s Chinongwa is a riveting and emotional coming-of-age story set in rural 1920s Zimbabwe. A young girl seeking to understand the boundaries between family myth and cultural mythology finds herself cast into a situation of nightmarish proportions. As the violence surrounding her is increasingly wrought upon her, the fantastic intervenes as a way to understand and cope with her reality. Ultimately, the protagonist translates her own life into a mythical register, refusing to succumb to the raw, magicless cruelty of the world. Mushita spoke in conversation at the Library with journalist Kidi Bebey about the writing of this work and its enduring relevance throughout the multiple transformations of present-day Zimbabwe.
About the speakers:
Lucy Mushita grew up in a small village in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Six years after the 1980 end of apartheid, she settled in Nancy, France, where she started writing Chinongwa, her first novel. She also taught Business English in multinationals, universities and grandes écoles. Chinongwa was first published in S. Africa in 2008, then translated into French (by Elise Argaud) and published by Actes-Sud in 2012.
Born and raised in Paris, Kidi Bebey is the daughter of the late Cameroonian artist and composer, Francis Bebey. A writer and journalist, her novel, My Kingdom for a Guitar, (translated from French by Karen Lindo and published by Indiana University Press in 2021) is inspired by her family history. Currently, Kidi writes online weekly chronicles on African literature in Le Monde.
Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.
