Tinashe Mushakavanhu and Nontsikelelo Mutiti, co-researchers of ReadingZimbabwe.com have been collecting, cataloging, digitizing, and making available information of as many publications about Zimbabwe from the 1950s to the present as is possible to identify and locate. This national archive is now submerged and is threatened with extinction: many of the key books of Zimbabwe’s literary canon, for example, are out of print. And most young people in Zimbabwe have no way of knowing they even exist. In fact, there is more material on ‘Zimbabwe’ at the New York Public Library than there is at Harare and Bulawayo city libraries. Through their work on this archive Mushakavanhu and Mutiti are doing a symbolic return of information and documents that no longer exist, or have never existed in their home country. They will demonstrate how Reading Zimbabwe provides a blueprint for recovering and preserving cultural history.

Dr. Tinashe Mushakavanhu is a writer and editor and holds a PhD in English from University of Kent. He is the 2018 Andrew W. Mellon Writer in Residence at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Nontsikelelo Mutiti is a visual artist and graphic designer and holds an MFA from Yale University. She is currently an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP and reserve your seat here.

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This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas & the Caribbean (IRADAC), the Africana Studies Group, and the GC Digital Initiatives.