When it comes to the literary activity in Mozambique, the Kulemba Association is an indispensable entity. It serves as an example of how one can "invest" in consumers of cultural products in the long term, and it is already bearing fruit. Dany Wambire is the president of this important organization based in Beira, and he shares with us the journey towards the dream of a country where books can have thousands of readers, thereby establishing a sustainable book industry.
Let's begin with recent developments and what brought the work of the Kulemba Association to the national forefront. Founded in Beira in 2015, the Kulemba Association is primarily a literary organization with the goal of cultivating readership and promoting literature in Mozambique. In 2023, Kulemba introduced and started awarding two significant literary prizes to Mozambican authors. The National Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature is dedicated to books written for younger audiences, while the Mia Couto Literary Prize is awarded for the best book of the year in the categories of Poetry and Prose (alternating between Novels and Short Stories).
Both awards, which are unique in their concept of honouring the best literary work published in the previous year, have already crowned their first winners and collectively amount to 900,000 Mozambican meticais. This represents a significant increase in the value attributed to literature and, perhaps, demonstrates through action that in the short term, it is possible to initiate a movement towards widespread reading and greater promotion of authors and their respective works.
Furthermore, the first prize for the best children's and young adult literature book was awarded to the work "Os pintos de sonhos," authored by Carlos dos Santos. As for the Mia Couto Literary Prize, the winners were the books "Pétalas negras ou a sombra do inanimado" (poetry) by Belmiro Mouzinho and "No Verso da Cicatriz" (novel) by Bento Baloi.
Prior to this, the Kulemba Association began organizing significant events in the cultural scene of the Sofala province, which quickly garnered national recognition. These events included contests resulting in the publication of books for various age groups, featuring new authors. They also included the Kulemba Children's Book Festival (FLIK), held annually in June, with national and international participation, and the Beira Book Fair (FLIB), which engaged diverse audiences with book launches, discussions with prominent Mozambican and international writers, notably from Portugal, competitions, workshops, and various other activities.
All of these activities lead us to inquire about the origins of Kulemba, its objectives, and how it has been working towards achieving its primary mission of promoting widespread reading.
The story that is narrated in the first person by the writer Dany Wambire begins with his own journey, his dream of becoming an author, and the publication of his first book. This was a bold step that could have led him into the unknown, alongside his students at the Matacuane Complete Primary School. Yes, the man who is speaking to us today, seen through the lens that can paint a portrait of an unwavering and unconventional literary activist, was a primary school teacher who decided to innovate from that point forward.
Mozavibe (M): What was the vision behind the creation of Kulemba, and what were the initial steps in its establishment?
Dany Wambire (D.W): For someone who spent a lot of time writing, perhaps starting an association seemed like a healthy pastime to occupy my free time. This might explain the emergence of the association. The other reason is that at that time, after publishing my first book in 2014, which was financed through a bank loan, I needed to recover the money invested. To do so, I found myself forced to do things I hadn't done before. Selling books on the street, selling to my school colleagues, and during this process, receiving negative responses, seeing people who couldn't or didn't have an interest in buying books. It was a shock for me. To write and, more than that, to have an obligation to repay a loan taken from the bank, while people were not buying the book. At that moment, the immediate thought, which has perhaps been the driving force behind me, was to realize that I needed to forget about one generation [adults] and work with a younger generation so that, perhaps, in five or ten years, there could be people who would buy books more easily. That's what motivated me to conduct the first reading workshops."
M: How was the process at that time? Did you already have an idea of where you wanted to go with these activities?
D.W: My vision has always been guided by the need to address very specific problems. It wasn't about solving big issues, but rather the challenges I encountered along the way. Activism is a continuous process. So, we started with reading workshops to address the problem of book sales because I couldn't sell books. However, this led children to develop a love for literature and also influenced a society that had not yet awakened to the beauty of literature, that it could take different forms, such as reciting poetry and enacting stories, which children began to do and present in public spaces in the city, including hotels. After the first reading mediation class, which lasted for three months, we had children being invited to all sorts of public ceremonies because people felt that the children were doing something different. This garnered more sympathy from the public and made them realize that literature had room for other things they had previously disregarded."
By Eduardo Quive
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