Memory Chirere

Memory Chirere is one of the more visible contemporary Zimbabwean writers. Chirere mainly writes short stories and some of which are published in No More Plastic Balls (1999), A Roof to Repair (2000), Writing Still (2003) and Creatures Great and Small (2005). He has published short story collections among them; Somewhere in This Country (2006), Tudikidiki (2007) and Toriro and His Goats (2010). Tudikidiki and Toriro and His Goats each won the National Art Merit Award in the respective years that they were published. His most recent book is a prize-winning collection of poems entitled: BhukuRisina Basa Nekuti Rakanyorwa Masikati published in 2014.  For Chirere, a short story is a just tumultuous episode in the life of a character. What is short is the narration and not the experience being dwelt upon. Beyond his creative work, Chirere has compiled and edited various other short story anthologies; Totanga Patsva (an all-women short story anthology), Children Writing Zimbabwe (an anthology of short stories for children by children) and, together with Professor Maurice Vambe, he compiled and edited the first critical book on Charles Mungoshi called Charles Mungoshi: A Critical Reader. Memory Chirere runs an active literary blog. He is currently with the University of Zimbabwe in Harare where he lectures in Literature.