3:15 AM And Other Stories is a debut anthology written by Rudo D M Manyere. The book was first published August 2022 by Carnelian Heart Publishing. It got nominated for the 2022 National Arts Merit Awards Zimbabwe.
3:15 AM and other stories
3:15 AM and other stories is collection of 9 stories, mostly set in Zimbabwe, in a time period ranging from the colonial era through to post independent Zimbabwe. The stories come in different shapes and size exploring love, loss, betrayal and everything in between. The book begun as a blog and the stories Rudo wrote when she was 23.
The Good
Rudo’s writing style is simple and easy paced that you keep turning the pages, saying I will read just one more story and before you know it, you have reached the last page.
While it might not have happened as a conscious decision, the collection serves as a work of historical fiction that doubles as a contextual social commentary on Zimbabwe. In 9 short stories you time travel through Zimbabwe’s history and for a heartbeat experience moments in time. You are left with a sense of nostalgia of the good old days, even amidst the drama that would be unfolding.
One of the stories, is a tale of star-crossed lovers set during a delicate chapter in Zimbabwe’s history. A chapter which over 35 years later still remains mostly untold and unhealed Gukurahundi. Which was a state-sanctioned systemic massacre of the Ndebele tribe. The only other book I read which was centered in this era was House Of Stone by Novuyo Tshuma.
As a fan of fantasy, two stories stood out, one is a thriller sort of ghost story and the other is about a tsikamutanda i.e. traditional witch hunter, a bit of a dip into the pool of Shona Mythology and Spirituality, which is another part of our ancestry that we got cowed into being silent about….
The Bad
You only get to read the titular story 3:15 AM as the second from last story (that is if you read in chronological order of the stories like a normal person)
You could say its saving the best for last 😂
The Ugly
That they end!
All stories end, in a book of short stories you will run into a lot of endings… The endings of ALL the stories in 3:15 AM and other stories have a certain abruptness that leaves you reeling with inertia.
The stories are not fairytales, they are not neatly wrapped up into a happy ever after, the end… No, they will haunt you long after you put the book down. When you finish this book you will need a support club to unpack how the author was relentless in not letting anyone catch a break, well, except once, but even then….
Final Thoughts
I loved the rollercoaster ride of different genres and styles and how it all fused with an overarching theme of love; love lost, love denied, love deferred and love found.
Shout to Bhala Writers for delivering the hard copy version and to the Harare Book Club whose February read was 3:15 AM and other stories… (I read and finished the book on the eve of the book club meeting, otherwise it might have stewed for a bit longer on my TBR😅)
Rudo Manyere who is a part of said Book Club, did a “live” reading of 3:15 AM and shared about her writing and answered a few questions about her book. One takeaway I got was that she wrote the stories in what she described as her Shonda Rhimes inspired era, where no character was untouchable and anyone could be killed off… for a book with short stories there is a lot of death between in its pages….
~B
Becoming The Muse 
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