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Thupeyo Muleya , Beitbridge Bureau
A BEITBRIDGE-based ex-police detective, Tawanda Chigavazira (42), has penned a Shona crime novel, Watsika Rufuse, which seeks to educate society, especially the youth on the dark side of crime.

Chigavazira, who is now a public prosecutor with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), said he has an undying passion to eradicate crime in the community.

“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 fail to be solved, not because of police’s ineptitude, but by sheer complexities that would be beyond the reach of the long arm of the law. This book rekindles my dying flames of African traditional beliefs in our society,” he said.

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

Gange is later arrested by a team of dedicated police detectives.

The ex-cop said he has always had a passion for writing but he needed encouragement to pick up the pen.

“I became seriously engrossed following a little nudge from my late friend, Crymio Kutyauripo. This was after I had told him about an unpublished English story in 1996 titled ‘One fire burns out another fire’s burning.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 write again. From then, writing became my favourite hobby. I started working on my English novel, ‘My Beloved is Not Mine’ in 2014. I worked on it during semester breaks while studying for a Law degree with the

University of South Africa (Unisa),” said Chigavazira.
While working on the English novel, he said, Kutyauripo challenged him to take up writing in Shona as well.

Chigavazira said: “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.”

With the Shona novel published, the ex-detective said, he has gone back to work on his unfinished English novel, which he hopes to publish in the second half of next year.

Chigavazira has also penned a poem ‘Mhere YeNduri’ that was featured in a Shona poetry anthology. An English poem ‘Essential Voices’ is also expected to be part of a book of poems to be released by Essential Books Publishers.

“I intend to write more poems and novels. I am an avid reader who enjoys collecting books and often get disappointed by losing them to relatives and friends,” said Chigavazira. —  @tupeyo