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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau

A Beitbridge-based ex-police detective has penned a Shona crime novel, that seeks to educate society, on the darker side of crime.

Tawanda Chigavazira (42) who now works for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), said he has an undying passion to solve crime in communities, hence his offering “Watsika Rufuse.”

“What inspired me to pen Watsika Rufuse is the drive to educate the youth that crime does not pay and that being cunning does not really solve problems.

“As a detective then, it was the need to enlighten the society that sometimes cases failed to be solved, not because of police’s ineptitude, but by sheer complications beyond the reach of long arm of law. This book rekindles my dying flames of African traditional beliefs in our society.”

Chigavazira said the book was centred on a crime field life of one Gangauswa (Gange) who played hide and seek with the law for a very long time after killing the teachers in his village.

Gange was later arrested by a team of detectives.

The ex-cop said he has always had a passion for writing at a tender age though it somehow became dormant until 2013.

“I became seriously engrossed following a little nudge from my late friend, Crymio Kutyauripo (May his soul rest in peace).

“This was after I had told him about an unpublished English story in 1996 entitled ‘One fire burns out another fire’s burning.

“I lost this story sometime around 2003 after I gave it to a friend to convert it to a word document. So, Kutyauripo urged me to pick it up again. From then, writing became my favourite hobby”.

“I started working on my English novel, ‘My Beloved is Not Mine’ in 2014, which would work on during semester breaks while studying for a Law degree with the University of South Africa (Unisa).

While working on the English novel, he said, Kutyauripo challenged him to take up writing in Shona as well.

“I found it difficult at first, but I gradually fell for it too. However, the Shona novel, ‘Watsika Rufuse’, overtook the English project and got published in September 2020.

“By then, I had also started penning some poems under an anthology titled, ‘Lies Never Lie’,” said Chigavazira.

With the Shona novel published, the ex-detective said, he was now working on, the unfinished English Novel (My Beloved is Not Mine) to be published in the second half of next year.

Chigavazira has also featured a Shona poetry anthology, “Mhere YeNduri published in early 2021, and an English poetry anthology, ‘Essential Voices’ about to be published by Essential Books Publishers.

He said he plans to publish more works in the future embracing digitization and modern technology.

“I am an avid reader who enjoys collecting books and often get disappointed by losing them to relatives and friends,” said Chigavazira.