ISBN | 9781779061454 |
Pages | 268 |
Dimensions | 203 x 133mm |
Published | 2021 |
Publisher | Pigeon Press, Zimbabwe |
Format | Paperback |
Mulberry Dreams
by Violette Kee-Tui
Mulberry Dreams was nominated for a Bulawayo Arts Award in 2021. Read an interview with Violette Kee-Tui here.
A day before Emma's 10th birthday, her life changes irrevocably and she finds herself ripped away from everything she holds dear - family, home and homeland. It takes her 30 years to summon the courage to return, finally ready to put together the puzzle pieces of her past. Her quest for answers is backdropped by a country in turmoil and a history which, once so blurry, comes into painful focus as the ghosts of her childhood take shape.
Set in the racially and radically different communities of pre- and post-war Bulawayo, Mulberry Dreams explores the different facets of Zimbabwean society through the lens of multiple protagonists over two generations, scarred by history, bound by circumstance, and forced to make choices for love, for family and for themselves. The reactions of a society on the brink, and the elegiac consequences of their interlocking decisions, will drive them to an inevitable and compelling conclusion.
Review
"With the lightest touch, think of embroidery, this journalist trained author - no word wasted - with the sensibility of a poet, coaxes us out of our dens, our mulberry trees, into the rich yet scarcely told culture of Bulawayo's "Coloured" community -God's orphans, as one of its celebrated citizens once described her people to me. The plot is so finely constructed that you will be gripped with anticipation from the first page to the last; and along the way you will be entertained by a tapestry of people and plac , all interconnected, Emma threaded to Calvin, Seattle threaded to Skies, mulberries threaded to dreams ... so that every expectation that arises in you, the reader, will be satisfied."