Indigenous-language writing in ... Zimbabwe

       In The Herald Stanely Mushava issues an SOS for literature in indigenous languages.
       He notes:

On March 16, 2013 the people-driven Constitution ratified as Zimbabwe's official languages, Chewa, Chibarwe, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Shangani, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda and Xhosa in addition to Ndebele, Shona and English.

How the development of these languages is going to be feasible with publishers who are neither preserving old authors nor publishing new ones staggers the rational mind.

Zimbabwe needs prolific authors, pro-active publishers, facilitative media, supportive government ministries and an interactive audience to grow this clause from a constitutional theory to a social reality.

       While "pro-active publishers, facilitative media, supportive government ministries and an interactive audience" seem an awful lot to hope for (though I figure those prolific authors are a dime a dozen ...), he makes a particularly good point regarding all the books already out there -- or that were out there once, but have since been sidelined (or worse).
       Good to see the local concern, at least, and if the over-ambitious constitution (sixteen official languages in a country of maybe fourteen million people ? just think how the much larger EU struggles ...) helps get more attention and support for writing in some of these languages ... that'd be a pretty good thing.