Becoming The Muse

Sworn to the depths of Inyangani

is a short novel, a collabowriters project by four authors Lindiwe Dhlakama, Takatso Sibanda, Rejoice Moyo and Banabas Karuma. .

The collabowriters project is a creatively innovative project which brings together different writers who are you doing today then challenged to create a work of fiction one chapter at a time.

Writer A does first chapter, Writer B reads the
first chapter and composes chapter 2, Writer C reads A and B and
builds Chapter 3 and so on……..

Sworn to the depths of inyangani Published in 2018 by Multimedia Box, Zimbabwe and made possible by support from various partners including British Council, Zimbabwe German Society

Sworn to the depths of the Inyangani is an African Fantasy work of fiction based on the myths and folklore of the Inyanga Mountains.

The Inyanga Mountains found on the Eastern part of the country have long since had an air of mystery which this story explores in this YA Fantasy where a young lad Elisha struggles to find balance between his Catholic religion and the mysterious world of the old ways, tradition and the secrets his parents have kept from him, secrets that now haunt his dreams because the past always catches up……

Sworn to the depths of the Inyangani, takes you to the depths of the Inyangani with its sacred healing pools and mermaids who spirit away people, never to be seen again and sometimes a chosen few come back, with healing abilities and a supernatural understanding of the world around, and where a past wrong if not corrected might have fatal consequences….. .

I love this book and read it at a time I have been thinking of how we are losing certain legends and lores from our culture, the unwritten myths that the modern world has no place for, maybe they are only that, legends; maybe they are a more but we shouldn’t let them fade into no more than barely remembered curiosities.

I never did try to figure which author wrote which part but in some chapters the were rather jarring differences in the story telling and some continuity issues where a chapter would begin on a different track leaving empty gaps in an otherwise captivating plot. Well I guess considering it was the work of four different people, it’s not unexpected that sometimes the difference would show.

It’s a short story which I wish could have been a bit longer to do justice to some aspects and flesh out some one dimensional characters that felt a bit rushed.

Still I loved the concept and I am tempted to start a collaborative blog post project… who is up for challenge?

~B