My Bulawayo team sat down with Valentine Tusai, an author and Mining Technologist. He had a lot to share as an author writing in Zimbabwe. (MB) My Bulawayo and (MV) Mr Valz.
MB. Who is Mr Valentine in 3 words? MV. I am creative, passionate and outspoken MB. Tell us about your educational background? MV. I went to Plumtree High school, BES college and then Zim School Of Mines
MB. What would we be surprised to know about you? MV. I am a farmer I do farming by passion MB. What inspires you to write books MV. I am more of a poet, I trained to be an engineer so I collect and compile the material I write in between times and make my books MB. What are the challenges you face as a writer in Zimbabwe? MV. Social media has to a certain extent killed the reading culture in Zimbabwe. We have grown up in learning environments that teach us to research to pass and not to understand. If we cultivate a culture of reading amongst our people then we would certainly go forward
MB. When did you start writing? MV.I started writing at primary, although it was always a small thing, I used to write songs, especially hip-hop and rap, I used to win talent competitions for that too. It is at a later stage when I really started writing and blogging seriously, that was around the time I finished varsity. MB. Is there money in writing? MV. My first collection went up for sale I made a fairly good enough money for a newbie. I sold mostly to the people I know though and there was no physical book launch, it was all online. I think I only started selling after its first year of release. It was really haphazard because I was working in the bush at the same time but for me the most important was getting as much people to read it so I went back to distributing free copies. I am planning to sell my next edition on Amazon and on paperback.
MB. How has been your first book received by your readers? MV. Everyone who read my book gave me a good feedback, so I’m happy MB. How do you balance between writing and farming and all that you do? MV. I usually get my ideas during the day while at work and as I move around, then when I get a chance to sit down I just lay down my thoughts. Writing is usually a late night thing for me or on Sundays mostly after I come from church.
MB. Would you take writing as a business? MV. Yes i would, it would totally be worth it to make make money off what you love MB. What are the challenges facing writers in Zimbabwe? MV. Maybe publishing, but I’m an ingenious person so I really don’t see publishing as way of making money. It is like a musician trying to make money off selling CDs. Writing will not get you anyway if you do not consider the factors that surround it. Use your writing to propel other initiatives and hustles. Zimbabwean writers have few people to look up to and that affects a lot. So its either you’re innovative or you die.
MB. Tell us about your book you just wrote Frabjous Fling. MV. Frabjous Fling is a story about a young man who has a fling with a married woman. This woman responds to his request in a poetical manner. There are twelve responses that this woman could have said and these come in the form of twelve poems by twelve ladies. So I feature twelve ladies in the book who hail from 6 countries; Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Israel, Botswana and South Africa. MB. How do you use social media to promote your work MV. I use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, blogs, online magazines and also Whatsapp which has taken the world by storm.
MB. What inspired this book? MV. What happens in this book is that 13 poets just came together to create awesomeness. The drive to be unique and thinking outside the box MB. When can we see hardcopies of your books in the pipeline? MV. Yes we can see after I get 500 free downloads then I can make hardcopies
MB. Thank you for your time sir.
