BY SHARON SIBINDI JOURNALIST and author Violette Kee-Tuli said her book titled Mulberry Dreams, that was nominated for the forthcoming Roil Bulawayo Arts Awards (RoilBAA), is centred on race relations and forbidden love, among other themes.
Kee-Tuli told NewsDay Life & Style that while the book explored the role played by race in Zimbabwe, with a focus on the often-overlooked coloured community, it predominantly tells a story about human relations.
“The book Mulberry Dreams is set in Bulawayo and centres on the lives of two families, one white and the other coloured, separated by race, but connected by a tragedy which has deep and lasting ripple effects on future generations,” she said.
“The story switches back and forth between two timelines, one in the late 1970s in the dying days of the liberation war, and the other in the mid-2000s against the backdrop of post-independent Zimbabwe.
“It is a story about how the scars of history and circumstance force us to make choices for love, for our family and for ourselves. The story was inspired on an emotional level by the on-going battles, individually and on a societal level, of identity and belonging.”
Born in Zimbabwe of Iranian parents, Kee-Tuli said she had that sense of wanting to cross the demographic delineations in this country, pre- and post-independence.
“I married a coloured man and my children, a whole generation on which we should have learnt to do better, found themselves grappling with the same issues trying to fit into the unreasonable and often illogical man-made boundaries imposed by our country,” she said.
Kee-Tuli said she had been on the fringes of almost every racial grouping, but was never fully incorporated into any.
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“I found a publisher who believed in the story and in me and actively encouraged me to make the final edits to complete the manuscript. And being a story about race relations, forbidden love, loss of innocence and survival, together with some strong themes about women, the timing is as relevant now as it was 30 years ago — which in a way is a sad testament to how little has changed over time,” she said.
“Although the book has resonated with Zimbabweans of all races, ages and genders, I have also been pleasantly surprised by the feedback from readers from all over the world. My target audience is anyone who enjoys fiction writing, with a strong set of characters and set against a distinct societal backdrop, with quite a bit of suspense thrown in.”
Kee-Tuli said the book had recently been added to the African Books Collective stable, hence it can be purchased by readers across the world.
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