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Mathew Masinge Entertainment Reporter
Schools from around Zimbabwe will soon be benefiting from the move by the Italian Embassy to translate the famous book “Adventures of Pinocchio” into Shona following the launch of the programme at Hellenic International School on Wednesday.

The 1883 Italian novel by Carlo Collodi which was later on put into a Walt Disney cartoon on February 23, 1940 will be translated by local Shona experts that the embassy will engage after its consultation with the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, other corporates and willing sponsors.

In an interview with The Herald Entertainment the Italian Ambassador, Mr Enrico De Agostini said the move seeks to let students associate reading books with entertainment.

“We have always known children for watching cartoons, playing video games and other things but as the Italian Embassy we thought of the best way to keep them busy with books. This is when we thought of translating Pinocchio into Shona so that they can read it for fun, associate it with entertainment and draw moral lessons because by reading books one is inspired in life,” he said.

He said just like Pinocchio learns life’s journey and is transformed into a human being, so will the children.

“In the book, Pinocchio goes through life’s horrible experiences and falls prey to cats, foxes which is a journey that eventually takes him back to his father and by that he goes through a lesson to learn to be responsible and becomes a true human being. Incidentally our children will be like this epic hero”, he said.

Ambassador De Agostini said the Italian fairytale will even be distributed to schools in rural areas. “We have Italian companies that are willing to help us finance this project, we have to engage school teachers around the country through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to read out loud the book in class just to create the whole fun. We are also arranging to host training seminars for them because they have to sort of read the book like actors,” he said.

He stressed that the underlying moral for the translation lies behind the life of Pinocchio’s father Geppetto who had love for children. “First of all, the importance of the book is pro-creation and love for children that we draw from the old carpenter Geppetto who was poor and had no children but only had a piece of wood that he was given. His wish to have a child of his own came true after his carved wood became a living reality and still he made a lot of sacrifices for the boy”, he said.