By Kudakwashe Vhenge
Authors and publishers have extended their condolences to the Mungoshi family following the death of writer, David Mungoshi.
Mungoshi died Saturday night at Harare’s Avenues clinic.
He was aged 71.
David was young brother to the late veteran writer, Charles Mungoshi and has been described as a very passionate and humble writer who had patience with his work and found time to nature budding writers.
Aleck Kaposa, publisher at Essential Books Publishing Company who worked with the late David at Book Fair and Live Literature Centre in the early 2000s described Davids death as a loss to country’s literary community.
He described Mungoshi as a father figure to most young writers.
“I remember him as a passionate and very humble writer who wrote from the depth of his heart. He did not shy away from helping emerging writers and took his time to write and perfect a book before publishing it, which is a big lesson to some of the impatient writers of today. I particularly enjoyed his book Stains on the Wall many years ago when i was in high school. Alongside Professor Musa Zimunya, David Mungoshi, was a fatherly figure to the younger generations of writers like me. We will definitely miss him. May GOD comfort the bereaved family in particular and the writing fraternity in general” said Kaposa.
Writers International Network Zimbabwe (WIN) director, Beaven Tarupeta who is also an award winning journalist and book reviewer said Mungoshi’s death is a loss to the arts and writing community as the country has lost a playwright, poet and artist combined.
“I am really saddened by the death of David Sunny Mungoshi. It is blow to the literary community. I personally took him as a father as he would always be open with me whenever I got something wrong, in life as well as in writing. I contributed to The Herald as a literary columnist (column called Bookshelf) at the same period when Mungoshi had a column in the same paper. Teacher and student writing for the same paper you may say, yet I remained his student and got lessons from his writings and well-researched features. In the literary community, we have lost a great artist, a great poet who has left us timeless words of wisdom particularly in his 2017 poetry collection Live Like An Artist. Mungoshi loved the new writers and many have had their published works edited by him. May his soul rest in peace,” said Tarupeta.
In an interview with this publication, Memory Chirere from the University of Zimbabwe who worked with David on numerous projects involving mentoring of young writers throughout the country described David as a writer who had an acute understanding of ordinary people especially women and as he showed this in most of his writings.
“The passing on of our colleague writer is a huge blow considering that he was a prominent writer, an actor, a teacher and a mentor. What remained outstanding in his books is his understanding and sympathy for women in books such as “The Broken Dreams and Other Stories” in which there was a woman who really wishes she could have a child and good marriage. You move on and look at his novel “The Fading Sun” you realize its a beautifully written novel in which the central character is again a woman suffering from cancer. Once more David Mungoshi demonstrated his deep understanding of women and human beings daily struggle with life as we know it today. We have lost a writer who has a serious sympathy for life in general and human beings in particular,” said Chirere.
David Mungoshi an academic and retired university lecturer spent most of his time teaching. He was a holder of Masters of Arts in Applied English Linguistics from the University of Zimbabwe. Some of his well-known literary works included The Broken Dreams and Other Stories, The Fading Sun, Stains on the Wall, and his collection of poems which included Live like an Artist as well as Ghetto Diaries.
For years Mungoshi contributed to The Herald writing a column titled Shelling the Nuts in which he would write about the local music.
David also featured in many television production films and dramas and most notably is the local soapie Studio 263 written by Aaron Chiundura Moyo in which he played the role of John Huni.
David Mungoshi died barely a year after his brother Charles Mungoshi with whom he shared with inherent literary prowess seeing them as some of the countrys most celebrated writers.
He is survived by wife Emma, six children and twelve grandchildren. Mourners are gathered at number 3 Umguza Way, Craneborne in Harare.
Burial arrangements were yet to be established at time of publishing.
