Harare City Library pulled from the brink

South Africans spend roughly 6 hours reading while Koreans , possibly distracted by social media such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, set aside a paltry 3 hours a week for this relaxing pursuit. The survey did not include Zimbabwe, but until our public libraries can be restored to their former glory we are unlikely to be classified as a big reading nation.

Harare City Library, which had been going to rack and ruin over a period of years, has been pulled from the brink by the efforts of the dynamic Harare City Library Management Committee, headed by Chairperson Petina Gappah, and a US$1 million gift from the government of Sweden. Zimbabwean writer Gappah, like many other literary stars, speaks of her early love for books and reading, and of many happy hours spent in libraries while growing up. While editing her new book, The Book of Memory, (to be published next year), she is re-reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Predjudice.

Libraries are also close to the heart of committee member Roger Stringer, who gained a diploma in librarianship from the University of Liverpool, after studying Latin and Greek at Leeds. Stringer’s work as an editor requires him to read and edit text, a slow and painstaking process, but for relaxation he turns to science fiction such as The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, or to the fantasy writers Tolkien and Jasper Fforde. Currently Stringer is reading Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, a surreal tale full of literary allusions, where the villain Hades kidnaps characters from the literary classics, bringing them into the present day. Detective Thursday Next has to travel through time and literature to save the characters and restore them to their novels.
Devi Pakkiri,previously a senior librarian at UZ, is an active committee member. She is also revitalising the Mabelreign library organising a Workers’ Library. Gardeners and domestic workers can visit their library during the lunch hour and take out books and read newspapers, at no charge. Dedicated Devi also runs ‘Happy Reading’, which provides an opportunity for children who missed out on school to develop reading skills. Devi has just finished reading Hugh Lewin’s Stones Against the Mirror, published in 2011. Based on a group of white South African activists’ struggle against apartheid, Lewin describes coming to terms with his betrayal by his best friend, which resulted in a seven-year jail sentence. Right now Devi is reading Flight Behaviour, the 14th novel by American author Barbara Kingsolver. The plot centres on climate change but also delves into the lives of a rural community in the Appalachians. Friendship, love, sex, religion, farming and frustration are all part of farm wife Dellarobia Turnbow’s life, but when the climate changes, people’s lives are also turned upside down.

As mayor of Harare, Mr Much Masunda became a trustee of Harare City Library and has been closely involved in its fortunes. Growing up in Bulawayo Masunda visited well-stocked libraries and became an avid reader. From the age of 15 his chosen reading matter included the biographies that helped him develop the leadership qualities he shows today. There are no novels or fiction currently on the bedside of Mr Masunda – before falling asleep tonight he will read the last few chapters of Team of Rivals – the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This prize-winning book describes how an obscure prairie lawyer from Springfield became president of the USA, appointing to his cabinet all three of his political rivals. Able to ignore personal slights and to get along with those who disagreed with him, Lincoln is remembered as a leader and a political genius.
The Master of the High Court and Harare City Library trustee Mr Eldard Mutasa revealed that in addition to the journals and newspapers he reads to keep abreast of current affairs, he enjoys reading Sidney Sheldon novels. Appropriately, Master of the Game is his favourite novel.

While many people go online to read newspapers or to keep up with social media, interviews with the library committee and trustees concurred that nothing comes close to the peace of mind achieved by sitting down with a good book. By nurturing our libraries the culture of reading will flourish and Zimbabwe will edge up in the infographics to become a big reading nation.