“Changamire Dombo —The Legend”, a book written by a Zimbabwean author based in Germany has been adopted into the country’s Advanced Level English Literature set books.
The book is also recommended for every Zimbabwean pupil from primary to tertiary level and for social reading too.
The author of the book, Phillip Gwatidzo, said that “Changamire Dombo — The Legend” takes a person back into the 1600s and makes them feel like they were physically present in the timeline, serving the King’s first hand. He said:
After the book was published, I met Dr Arthur Makanda, Director of Curriculum Development Unit (CDU) in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, and to this day I am inspired by the work ethos and the professionalism the man conducted in the evaluation process.
As a diasporan, social media funnels you to being a skeptic of engaging public office, but I have to commend the level of professionalism I encountered with the Ministry regardless of whether my material had made the cut or not.
The selection of the book is an honour of the highest magnitude, a dream that was followed by hard work to see it come true.
It is a passion project that I am excited to share with the students. As a proud, patriotic Zimbabwean and African, it was always had the desire to get to share what I feel inside for my country and continent with the rest of the world and this book became that platform.
Gwatidzo said he has reached a publishing agreement with Consultus Publishing Services which is the distributor of the book in the country. He added:
This allows me to focus on phase 2 of the project which is to dramatise the book for screenplay. The intent of phase 2 is to make a global blockbuster of “Changamire Dombo — The Legend” that will screen worldwide.
It is my wish and intent to reach agreements with production companies that will shoot the movie in Zimbabwe, using the original sites such as Great Zimbabwe, Mosi Oa Tunya, Mana Pools, and Gonarezhou.
The majority of the workforce on set to be Zimbabwean, not only showcasing our beautiful country in the process but also creating a workforce during the filming process and an opportunity to showcase local talent to the world.