Spiwe, writer with a keen eye for a good read

My appreciation of books is pretty much like that I have for flowers, although in a somewhat reversed way. With flowers it’s “don’t pluck them, let them thrive so we enjoy them for longer”. With books it’s “pluck them off the shelves, read them, pass them around”, that way more people get to enjoy them.

ON SATURDAY July 15, 2017, writer Spiwe MahachiHarper invited friends and book lovers to her house in Westgate, Harare, for a book sharing event at her expense. At the Bookstore’s pen Elliot Ziwira was among the guests, who included Albert Chimedza and his wife Antonella, Lawrence Hoba, Monica Cheru-Mpambawashe, Theodora Chirapa, Beniah Munengwa, Sidney Mazwi and his wife Anne.

Here Spiwe (SMH) shares her love for a good read, book collection and other issues with Elliot (EZ). EZ: Hi Spiwe! Welcome to the Bookstore. SMH: Hi Elliot. EZ: Am at a loss for words, but how have you come to have such a vast library? SMH: I read quite a lot, or rather, I used to read at least three books a week, but now social media takes some of my time and I’m lucky if I read a book a week. My library is vast because in the UK where I have been based since 1998, I buy the books that I read, and also because I always think of the many friends and relatives who love reading but cannot always get the books. In the past I rarely bought books. Whatever books we read were passed on from one person to the other and in the process some of them got lost. That made it difficult to have a collection of books. In the UK, I live in a closed society. We hardly know our neighbours and we make few friends. I do not have a clue if any of them read, and if they do, what sort of books. So you do not get people borrowing books from each other the way we do in Zimbabwe. Besides, the books are affordable and easy to get. You just go online, Amazon mostly for me, search for the book you want, click and pay, and the book is delivered right on your doorstep. For those that enjoy the thrill of perusing shelf after shelf of books, there are plenty of bookshops that sell all kinds of literature. Besides these bookshops there are second-hand bookshop where one can get books at very low prices. The other reason I end up with lots of books on my hands is that I become very sentimental over some of them. These are books that somehow worked their way into my soul and got so deep I feel I must have a copy of them. I have this irrational fear of losing them. If I come across a second copy of such a book going cheaply I just buy it, just in case someone borrows my one copy and “loses” it. Examples of such copies are “The Stone Virgins and Butterfly Burning” by Yvonne Vera, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, Åsne Seierstad’s “The Bookseller of Kabul”, “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Bryony Rheam’s “This September Sun” and most of Charles Mungoshi’s books. EZ: Do you buy a book because you

love it, or you buy on impulse? SMH: I buy books that I know I will enjoy reading, but I’ve bought books in the past because of the media hype and also because back then I thought I should read those books that are reviewed and touted as literary gems, must reads, so to speak. That saw me buying Stephen Hawking’s world-acclaimed book, “A Brief History in Time”; a book about the black hole”. But 10 pages into that book had my head spinning. The guy is a physicist, so I don’t know what I was trying to prove by reading a book that is said to baffle even the brightest of scientists. The book must be covered in dust in the garage now. I have not laid eyes on it in close to two decades. EZ: Do you have any particular artistes that you prefer, or you simply love a good read? SMH: I have writers whose works I wait by the printing press for. They can’t write as fast as I read them, but I also love discovering new writers. Now and again some authors are recommended to me, and off I rush to buy their books. Only last week we had Robert Muponde talking about Lawrence Hoba’s “The Trek and Other Stories”. I immediately bought it and read it overnight and loved the style of writing and the crafting of sentences in the short stories. Prior to that he had waxed lyrical about “The Jive Talker” by Samson Kambalu. That’s my next read, a book I immediately ordered online. EZ: Books seem to be off the shelves in Zimbabwe, so where do you get them from? SMH: I buy them in UK. I brought in most of those books two years ago but each time I come home I bring a dozen or so because I have as many books in Zimbabwe as I have in the UK. Because books are in short supply in Zimbabwe, I’d like to ship all of them back here. EZ: How long did it take you to amass such a large cache of books? SMH: A few were bought more than a decade ago. At that time I used to give away the books I’d have read, unless I particularly liked them. But it was in the last five years that I started collecting them with the

aim of establishing a library. EZ: You said you have another library in the UK, which is even bigger than the one here at your Westgate home, are the books on the same authors or interests? SMH: Pretty much the same. I collect classics, books by African writers, Afro-Americans, West Africans, Chinese writers, Asian writers, etc., but these days I have a particular interest in Zimbabwean literature. I collect books on cookery and gardening. I have lots of thrillers and also a few books that I know I won’t ever read, for instance,“Fifty Shades of Grey” by E. L. James; one of those books that I bought because of the hype. But the more reviews I read on it the more I’m convinced it’s not my kind of book. So it’s destined to gather dust on my bookshelf until someone who loves that kind of literature comes to borrow it. EZ: Would you call yourself an avid

read then? SMH: Most definitely, though I’m

slowly down, somewhat. EZ: What do you look for in a book?

SMH: I look for something deeper than just “once upon a time, this man met that woman and they live happily ever after”. I want a story that takes me places and thrusts me into a world where I marvel at other behaviours and ideas. I want a story that speaks to my emotions. I want to come out of a story having learnt a thing or two. In between reading books that speak to my emotions I read thrillers. A particular favourite of the moment is Simon Kernick. I exhausted all of Mario Puzo’s books and since he’s long dead I no longer wait by his printing press. EZ: You buy a lot of books and you give them away in the blink of an eye, why? SMH: I don’t give them away. I loan them out and hope that those who borrow them will be trustworthy enough to bring them back. I do so because I see no point in having a huge library of books that just sit on the shelves and gather dust. That’s being cruel to books. They are meant to be read, enjoyed and loved. My appreciation of books is pretty much like that I have for flowers, although in a somewhat reversed way. Read the full interview on www.herald.co.zw