TALKING ABOUT THE HORNS @ UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE

It always helps to know how many people are coming along … would you either email Janene Gardner by clicking here, ring her at (07) 5545 4448 or text 0424 586 066 to make sure of a place.

I have often wondered why on earth I embarked on such an ambitious project but, bottom line was that I had an interesting story to tell if I bound up eight years of research into a descriptive historical novel based on the truths and untruths of that research.

Then I realised I had the perfect vehicle to do it with!

Having been born and bred in Tsholotsho, the three best friends of my childhood years, were Ndebele boys - and they went on to lead such diverse lives, that between the four of us, we could bring to life the hopes, aspirations, desperations and increasing predation yet isolation of the country, covering its history in a vivid and dramatic way.

Book One moves from 1840, the formation of the Matebele Kingdom by Mzilikazi, through Lobengula’s reign, on to the carpet baggers, empire builders and early administration of Southern Rhodesia (the last of Britain’s colonies) It ends soon after UDI - the Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain by Prime Minister Ian Smith.

Book Two takes the four characters live through civil war and prohibitive sanctions years to 1980 and Book Three will pick up at Independence bringing Robert Mugabe into the spotlight, to whenever the book is completed.

I am delighted to be reading excerpts from the book and talking in the glorious Gold Coast hinterland - and forward to catching up with old friends and new at this great little bookshop Under the Greenwood Tree, on the 14th of July.

If you would like an information piece to send on to others who might be interested, please click here …. or if you want to get hold of me click here: