Language, Thought, Art and Existence

Tendai R. Mwanaka

Description

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Sujets

• Popular Culture
• Art

Informations

• Publié par: Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd
• Date de parution: 23 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781779272782
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

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Tendai R. Mwanaka

T endai R. Mwanaka

LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, ART AND EXISTENCE: New and Recollected Creative Nonfictions and Essays Tendai R. Mwanaka

Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd, Chitungwiza Zimbabwe * Creativity, Wisdom and Beauty

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Publisher:Mmap Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd 24 Svosve Road, Zengeza 1 Chitungwiza Zimbabwe [e-mail] [e-mail] https://www.mmapublishing.org www.africanbookscollective.com/publishers/mwanaka-media-and- publishing https://facebook.com/MwanakaMediaAndPublishing/ Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com ISBN: 978-1-77924-319-5 EAN: 9781779243195 ©Tendai Rinos Mwanaka 2022 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views ofMmap.

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Content Table Introduction……………………………………………………iv Language, Thought and Reality…………………………………1 The Writer‘s Experience………………………………………..11 Memories and Memoir Writing………………………………….23 The Poet‘s Revenge To No One Who Buys Poetry Books……...26 Gayrism…………………………………………………………35 The Caine Workshop and African writing reflections: How I decided on ―Notes from Mai Mujuru‘s breast‖………………….36 My Volmoed Journey…………………………………………....53 Nyanga, December 2015: In Search of Ancient Ways…………...73 Collectivism Vs. Individualism………………………………….95 Desire and Passion……………………………………………...99 Death (Life)……………………………………………………104 Doubt………………………………………………………….109 Dear John……………………………………………………...115 It‘s Not About Me: Dairies (2010-2011)……………………....124 Coldplay‘s X&Y, Angels, Him and Her………………………..143 Gathering Evidence: Dairies (2012-2013)…………………….158 A Date With Jonathon Matimba: An Appreciation of the Legendary Zimbabwean Sculptor……………………………...184 The Evidence of Things Said: Dairies (2014-2015)……………..196 Music and Me………………………………………………….207 Corona Virus Lockdown Journals for Inmate #4 567356809: Thought Tracks………………………………………………...212 Reject or Accept Everything…………………………………...221 References……………………………………………………..223 Mmap Nonfiction and Academic Series………………………..226

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Introduction LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, ART AND EXISTENCE:New and Recollected Creative Nonfictions and Essaysis a multidisciplinary collection comprising of 21 critical and personal essays and several artworks and photos, written in a creative way that centres around the topics of language, thought (philosophies), art and existence. 17 essays appeared in the previous edition of this book, and I added 4 new latest essays. Instead of academic only essays that one would expect with this title, this collection continues with my ideology of presenting nonfiction in a creative, fresh, easy to read, simple language, with most essays driven by personal stories, thus making it accessible to a wide spectrum of readers from the scholarly to journalistic to general readers. I started with the language essays as I feel for us to communicate we need a language first and foremost, and in these language essays I tried to define the parametres of what I will discuss in the book. The first essay entitled,Language, Thought and Reality bends to the academic genre as it deals with what language is, how language is constructed by the people, and inversely how language defines the people and the world they inhabit, how thoughts are part of language of a people, and how all these are shaped by the reality in which they happen. The essayThe Writer’s Experience is on writing and the language I create with my writing, what inspires me to write, what I am trying to attempt with my writing. It is still a look at language but from the writer‘s perspective. The third essay is on memory and memoir writing entitled,Memories and Memoir Writing, in which I investigate the neural paths of memories, how to extract

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memories to create memoirs. How memoir writing gives us a perspective seat to come to terms with who we were, who we are now, who we want to be in the future. The forth essay,A Poet’s Revenge to No One Who Buys Poetry Booksthe writing critical mocks establishment and the readership culture around poetry. Where there is so much critical output on a constricted view of what poetry is, where poets are issuing so much work that will never be critiqued, or read because the readership has lost interest in poetry. It mocks the institutionalising of art and the writers prizes out there. The next essayGayrism is short, just a paragraph but it defines why the writer supports Gayrism as a human right. The next essay,The Caine Workshop and African Writing Reflections: How I decided on “Notes from Mai Mujuru’s Breast”deals with the writing process as a writer. I didn‘t want to throw abstracts theories on my writing processes, so I used the personal route in which I explored how I got to write the storyNotes from Mai Mujuru’s Breast, a story I wrote for the Caine 2012 prize anthology. I first wrote this essay as the story for the Caine, and later wrote the story, in those 10 days at the workshop in the Cape. But I expanded the essay, and not only do I focus on writing process, but how to write the story under workshop conditions, and the African writing landscape. The essay is written in a funny, jocular, exploratory way. Whilst this was one way I could get to write,I didn‘t proffer it as the only way I get to write, as I would explore several other ways in the book, especially in the diary series. Whilst the essays on language and writing I have outlined are not comprehensive, they give a clear path to delineate my ideas and philosophies around language and writing which I continuously explored throughout the book.

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The language essays are followed by mostly travel and thought essays. I do think a lot when I am waking or travelling thus I have realised this is one of the best ways to process thought, through travel. Using concepts I have highlighted in the previous section on Language, I open out my thoughts in this group of essays. The first travel essay,My Volmoed Journeyis on my travel process to the Caine workshop in Volmoed, Western Cape, South Africa, the little travels we did around Volmoed, the travels that were happening inside me during the 10 days. I tried to juxtapose the two travel routes, the one inside and the one outside- the physical one, and some historical aspects of the place and its environs. The next essay is on my travel back to where I came from, Nyanga, Zimbabwe which I did in December 2015, entitledNyanga, Decemeber 2015: In Search of Ancient Ways.In this travel essay I strike a strong parallel with a historical issue that I am interested in, that is, exploring the ancient ways that were there before my civilisation, in this place. As I noted in the memoir writing essay, there is no now without the past. There is no future without the past thus in this travel writing I tried to shed light on connections between past and the future through the present. And in this collection, I reworked it and included other aspects of our past like our music, musical instruments, and cap it with a textual video narration I made of the place. The next essay isCollectivism Vs Individualism. I think the world over they have been discussions around these issues in several ways like the 99 percent vs 1 percent discussions, protests, movements we

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saw a few years ago. These I felt could be explored on a binary line between Collectivism and Individualism. I explore the pros and cons of both outlooks, and tried to bridge them, in trying to find the best way forward as humanity. The next 3 thought (philosophy) essays form the core of my thought roots and drives it, that isDeath(birth and death), Desire ( Desire and Passion) andDoubt. I feel the tripod of life, of being, of existence rests on these legs. Death conditions us in this life, makes us realise our existence is tenuous in this state, gives us the time parameter to shape ourselves. Desire fires our lives, imaginations, ambitions. It sweetens or not, our lives. Doubt gives us questions to find answers to our agency, to as who we are, solutions to our existential dilemmas. I tried to explore each of the three academically, philosophically, psychologically and personally, with personal stories grounding the discussions into what is real and believable. The last thought essay looks at one issue that seems to be the centre ofhumanity‘sobsession, SEX. But instead of deepest writing thedon‘ts and dos, or instead of writing religious philosophical or scholarly constructions of this issue, I decided on personalising it, and write it as part story, part essay, and part humour.Dear Johna funny and fun take on sex as I used other is worlds than that of the human to try to unbundle this obsession with sex we now have. The thought essays are followed by existential essays. On this group I focussed on the writer‘s existentialdilemmas as the person.

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In this group I use the diaries with 3 diary periods between 2010 and 2015(It’sNot About Me: Diaries (2010-2011), Gathering Evidence: Diaries (2012-2013),and The Evidence of Things Said: Diaries (2014- 2015)).I just recorded what was happening to me, around me, in me at these time periods in Zimbabwe, in Chitungwiza. But I also dealt with issues like the political situation in Zimbabwe, music, reading, writing, language, thoughts, the spiritual and social aspects etc… And I added essays between these diaries, personal and art essays. The first essay isColdplay’s X&Y, Angels, Him and Her. I love this band‘s music, especially how the album helped me to deal with a difficult relationship. HowColdplay‘scould be used by music others to deal with a whole host of existential dilemmas. I also explored the music and art of Coldplay band as an artist, as a phenomenon, as an institution. The other art essay looks at the first individual I knew on a personal level who was an artist, his life, his artistic practice, our relationship and how that might have helped to instil this love of art I have. The essay is entitledA Date with Jonathon Matimba: An Appreciation of the Legendary Zimbabwean Sculptor. Through exploring the visual artworks and life of my Uncle, Jonathon Matimba, I also explored what I might sometimes be trying to attempt with my visual art, that of being the storyteller. The last art essay is entitled Music and Me, and these two Ms are very important to me now. I love music. In this essay I am not singing, I am not making music, I am not doing music notes, I am just exploring all these from the listener of music perspective. This is where my greater talent lies, listening.

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The other new essays in the book areCorona Virus Lockdown Journals for Inmate #4 567356809: Thought TracksandReject or Accept Everything.Whilst the first one deals with how I had to adapt to living in isolation resultant of the Covid 19 Lockdowns and the last one that wraps up the book propose another way to take a look at all the issues and ideas I tried to deal with, with everything else, you can either reject everything or accept everything Throughout the book, as the new adage thepersonal is political, thus therefore I let this drive the essays as I tried to investigate what I thought was language, existence and art. This book is invaluable to the academic establishment, social theorists, linguists, literary theorists, art activists and the general readers

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