Books by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka

Poets featured in Zimbolicious 5th Anniversary Edition are: Tanaka Chidora, Tendai Rinos Mwanaka, Killian Nhamo Mwanaka, Jabulani Mzinyathi, Mandhla Mavolwane, Wilson Waison, Beniah Munengwa, Chenjerai Mhondera, Lisa Jaison, Tinashe Muchuri, Oscar Gwiriri, Christopher Kudyahakudadirwe, Troy Da Costa and John Eppel. These are some of the very best contemporary poets from Zimbabwe, poets we have worked with for the past 5 years as Zimbolicious project. This is an anniversary edition to celebrate the 5 year literary journey.

Zimbolicious Anthology: An Anthology of Zimbabwean Literature and Arts, Vol 5 is the fifth in this yearly journal of Zimbabwean literature and the arts as it happens. The poetry covers a range of subjects; love, spirituality, religion, migration, poet's vocation and as usual the political direction or situation in the country. The fiction deals with a wide range issues, from religious contrivance in Gwiriri's story, drug problem and corruption in Mutize's story, the political and economic strife in Tokwe's story, and the personal trauma story in Chikomo's car accident story.In the nonfiction section we have Muchuri's illuminating essay on another Zimbabwe storyteller, Ignatious Mabasa's Shona books, Zvikomborero Kapuya harks back to the land issue as the starting point and catapult to the misunderstandings between Zimbabwe and her erstwhile foreign enemies, Chikono writes his painful life story on shame families carry when a family member has a child out of wedlock, worst when the child is disabled and Mwanaka has a small philosophical vignette essay on choice.The visual section is heralded by Nhevera's iconic brushworks depicting movement and portraiture, and Mwanaka has an array of art pieces from documentary photography, experimental photography, water colour, computer graphic and installation, wrapping up this new offering.

Sprawling to the south east of the revered Harare…there is a place millions call home, Chitungwiza as in that olden track, "mushamukuru, wakaenda kupiko, Chitungwiza." It is Zimbabwe's biggest village, that became a town, that became a city, that became our own Soweto… Zimbabwe's biggest suburb yet also Zimbabwe's Hollywood. It has produced or groomed Zimbabwe's creatives and creative industry from film, by the book, poets, musicians, entertainers, academia, media practitioners, sculptors and those involved in other visual arts. In this anthology, Chitungwiza Mushamukuru: An Anthology from Zimbabwe's Biggest Ghetto Town, we have work from 1 artist and 11 writers who have called this Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe home, or have wrote home about this place, or have created artworks which highlight the culture, identity, lives, and position Chitungwiza in these matrixes or beyond those highlighted above.

The first thing you will meet in this collection is experimentation and innovativeness in the writing. Poets should be scientists by experimenting with forms, styles, with subject matter too, they should continuously try to find new ways of writing, to problematicise what we have always taken for granted. The second issue is how we understand and critically dissect that point where art criticism and actual art can meet in the poetic form. The third issue is how irreverently the poet treates issues to do with the meaning of words, what words are, how he creates new words, what numbers are, the state of voice, language, thoughts, dreams, perspectives, life, race, death, dreams, spirituality, love etc… The fourth issue is the storytelling tradition that is strong in this collection; the poet is saying poets are also storytellers, who tell a story in condensed form with depth of thought and feeling. The fifth important aspect is defiance. The poet refuses to settle on anything, to accept anything, he is a literary rebel with language, no subject is taboo. A Portrait of Defiance defiantly looks at the world before voice and the world after voice, and the worlds in between. What will human beings be without voice? Even nothingness has a voice!

When Escape Becomes the only Lover is a continuation and crystallization of issues dealt with in A Portrait of Defiance. The poet deals with a broad subject matter, love in all its forms, spirituality; this spirituality is individual it is the artist's spiritual world. He deals with dreams, voice, word, numbers, poet's vocation, wars, language, etc… He is the prophet of his dreams, his world, his future… There is strong experimentation and innovativeness in the writing, in the text, in form, in style, in content matter, the writer is a discoverer, every horizon is a life horizon. There is the dissecting of that space where art criticism meets art mimesis, and this space is offered as the future of art criticism. The storyteller refuses to die thus the collection proffers escape as the ultimate lover who can help us deal with the insanities of our time.

Drawing Without Licence is a collection of Zimbabwean artist, Tendai Rinos Mwanaka's first 51 drawings and interpretations of his them. Most of the drawings have been published in literary and art journals over the years worldwide and this book will serve as an open ended public exhibition platform for these drawings. The collection contains pieces which deal with the supernatural world, spirituality, philosophy, memory, relationships, love…, and acts as the search for sanctuary and forgiveness for our past failures and fears; and to help us understand our reality and humanity.

Vote rigging, voter apathy, intimidations, biased reporting, hubristic political leaders, political gerrymandering, a confused world, and a tired and timid electorate: add to this the decay or death of every governance system or structure in Zimbabwe alongside an economy that is all but dead. These are the issues addressed in this poetry collection Mad Bob Republic. Is there an end to Zimbabwe's problems? The poet contributes to ongoing discourses on the country.

Keys in the River: New and Collected Stories, is a cycle of stories about life, love and spirituality, told as if the reader were sitting and listening to neighbors and friends talking about life. Some stories are tender, even comic; in others, tragedy and outrage lurk. The stories share a common thread, a noble stance in the struggle to find love, freedom, completeness, humanness and satisfaction.