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Samantha Chihuri

Samantha Chihuri
Fear. It’s something that resides in us, no matter how big or small, and manufactures some of mankind’s greatest failures. What brings us success, however, is the thing that hides beneath our fear – strength. By design, we were meant to be beautiful, powerful individuals, with a wild, chaotic world changing capability.

That reason is a reason why I wrote what I wrote – to make it known to more people that they are capable of so much more than they know. In the past, if someone came up to me and told me I’d write, publish and launch a book before I even wrote my O-Levels I’d have laughed at them. I’ve always had a passion for the literary arts but I never anticipated that I’d start my journey so soon.

Firstly, I’d like to take time to thank my dear Heavenly Father, for blessing me with the ability to write, and for blessing me with such an amazing and supportive family and circle of friends.

Secondly, I’d like to thank my family – my parents for their overwhelming support and encouragement. In the pages of my little book they saw something. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m glad they saw it. Without them, my dream of writing would have become just that – a dream.

I wrote this book at first against my own will, thanks to my friends. Our school (Chisipite Girls’ High) library started a new competition inspired by Life of Pi in 2012, called Life of Moi (that is French for “me”, for those of you who don’t speak Chinese).

My friend Kundai forced me to enter it but it was common knowledge that mostly Upper Sixths and Lower Sixths were entering. I was only 14 back then and I didn’t want to enter a losing race. But she finally convinced me and I entered two days before the competition was over.

It’s that fantastic Zimbabwean timing of ours that led me to enter the competition so late, so I wrote it in two days.

My friends helped me cut up pieces of paper – there were over 500 pages, bear in mind – and glue them together before running to submit it just in time.

Out of all those seniors I came first.

And suddenly, there I was, an unofficial teen writer only by what seemed like a little talent, a lot of work, and complete accident.

I’ve always wanted to have the title after my name” – #1 New York Times Bestselling Writer”. I definitely feel a step closer to that dream.

These people I have mentioned have not only brought something out in me, but they’ve helped me to build it up into something special. What prevented me from doing it on my own was my fear of failure, of being unaccepted. It’s these irregular fears that pushed me to write “Chaotic”.

I thought of how we all have silly, irrational fear that is designed to keep us from reaching our fullest potential, and this is how I created my protagonist, Amari. She is a character that I feel we can relate to a little, because we all fear something. She, however fears everything. In the book, after being dealt a very harsh set of cards by life, she somehow finds that inner courage that she never knew existed and seizes it, and changes her life, and those of her family and friends.

My book is aimed at young girls, girls who may be battling with a fear of their own, however, through reading about Amari, I hope they see that they have to have inner strength. When you see that, change takes place.

In Amari’s case, when she had hit an all-time low in her story, instead of succumbing to all her fears she did the exact opposite. She overcame them.

In conclusion, I’d just like to say that fear can stand for two things:

Forget everything and run or face everything and rise.

The choice is yours.

This is an excerpt of the speech given by Samantha Chihuri at Meikles Hotel last weekend when she launched her novel, “Chaotic”.