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WE found it profound that the latest edition of our sister paper, Sunday News, carried a piece on the death of prolific writer, actor and historian, Pathisa Nyathi and another, a fresh one he had actually written.

It was a sharp contrast, which however asserted the sort of person he was — a literary man who literally wrote to his last breath.  

Nyathi, who died on Saturday aged 73, was originally a teacher of Maths and Sciences who made the unlikely switch to become an authoritative writer of Zimbabwean, rather African, history and culture.  

He was good at digging back into time and bringing it all into the present in written form. He wrote a library of books and papers over the years including a regular column in this paper a few years ago as well as the weekly one in Sunday News. 

Apart from doing the writing, Nyathi served as secretary of the Zimbabwe Writers Union, deputy director of Mthwakazi Actors and Writers Association, Bulawayo branch chairman of the Zimbabwe Academic and Non-Fiction Authors Association and the Zimbabwe Writers Union, committee member of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee of Zimbabwe and board member of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair, Zimbabwe Book Development Council.  He, too sat on the Mambo Press Editorial Advisory Board.

He took up key presidential assignments as well, the latest one being to document the Pupu Battle of 1893 as well as Ndebele King, Lobengula’s final journey that marked the fall of the Ndebele state.  

The late Pathisa Nyathi

President Mnangagwa issued a fitting message of condolences following Nyathi’s death and honoured him with a State-assisted funeral.

“We deeply grieve over this very sad and untimely demise, which has robbed our nation so irreparably,” said the President. 

“A veteran educationist who specialised in teaching Science and Mathematics, Cde Nyathi raised many professionals who today occupy positions of influence in our society. He showed intellectual versatility and breadth when he blazed a new trail as a historian, even then, so late in his teaching career and, more surprisingly, well into his ever busy and restless retirement from the teaching profession.”

Nyathi deserves all the honours. His works earned them.  

Most of our people have been rightly criticised for our collective failure to document our experiences. 

Even some of our freedom fighters have been challenged to put in writing the roles they played during the war for the benefit of future generations.     

Looking at the impressive body of work that Nyathi authored, our people must feel challenged to do just a bit of his record.  

We are indeed sad to have lost this versatile, untiring writer but get comfort in the fact that he didn’t really die.  He lives on through his writings.