Chronicles From A Village Historian

Chronicles From A Village Historian is a short story collection that reimagines Zimbabwean folktales. It contains stories that, to my knowledge had only survived through oral tradition, passed down from generation to generation. This collection was born from the realization that these tales are slowly getting lost, as evidenced by my family’s struggle to remember them. I worked with my mother, who sent me recordings of the stories. From each tale, I identified the central source of tension. For example, in “Principles of Etiquette,” a girl lives with her grandmother, a cannibal witch who eats any man interested in her. From there, I reconstructed the plots, rewriting them from scratch. Thus, the stories in this collection are not direct transcriptions of the original tales but reinventions shaped by my creative interpretations. This page is required for all dissertations, theses, and doctoral projects.