BY STYLE REPORTER
Although Fungai Jayaguru is well-known for her work as an author through her books White Darkness and Untold Stories, on the flip side of her creative exertion, she is a passionate speaker and motivator.
Her expressive artworks are defined by her desire to feed her wild imagination, create fantasy worlds and serve them to the people.
In a brief biography of herself, available on Amazon.com, Jayaguru describes herself as “a socially introverted empathy whose voice is more audible in scripts and storytelling”.
It does not end there; the 27-year-old artist is also a model and musician.
The Superlady, as she is now popularly known, said she got a lot of inspiration from her father.
She has turned out to be a woman of many talents primarily concerned in the beginning not with art, painting or writing, but public speaking and motivating others.
“Growing up, my father was a pencil artist and I have always loved to draw like him,” Jayaguru told Standard Style.
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“Unfortunately, my hand was terrible with the pencil and I opted to use words to draw pictures in my head. I started writing poems while I was in Grade 3.
“One of my first poems was titled I fear for the future and it became a signature for my primary school years.
“For the love of words, I found myself reading articles and novels beyond poetry, which later made me a great story teller, according to my teachers.”
The Gweru-born artist joined the mainstream literature industry after publishing her first novel titled White Darkness in July 2020, which was followed by a poetry compilation titled Untold stories, released in November 2020.
This led to the South Africa-based artist being nominated for the Africa Literature Awards 2021 in Botswana by Mulher Forte Africa.
“I am also a speaker and influencer and I won the second runner-up award for the Mentor Coach of the Year 2020 hosted by the International Coaching and Mentoring Foundation,” Jayaguru said.
“I am a part-time model and musician. I am in the process of writing a collaborative novel titled The Great Depression alongside a Batswana writer called Paula Otukile.”
She said to make it big in a foreign country, one needs to be super talented and networked.
“To make a name in a foreign land depends with the connections you have as an individual, otherwise it’s not very easy,” Jayaguru said.
She draws encouragement from a number of fellow regional artists that have managed to carve a niche for themselves on the global arena.
“I think as regional artistes we are pacing towards the global leader board. Our artists are drawing the world’s attention, for instance, Casper Nyovest, Jah Prayzah, Winky D, Tsitsi Dangarebgwa, Trevor Noah and many others,” Jayaguru said.
She bemoaned the advent of Covid-19, saying it had been a major stumbling block to her career and that of many other artists across the globe.
“The greatest challenge under Covid-19 has been the inability to conduct physical live shows and presentations due to curfews and lockdowns,” Jayaguru said.
“I believe it is a uniform issue for all of us as artists as the pandemic has affected the entire arts spectrum.”
