The question really is what steered me away from literature to film. For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a writer. I was working towards my BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing when I fell in love with film. It was the late 90s and truly phenomenal, inventive and innovative ways of storytelling were being explored in film, especially in independent and international cinema. I remember watching films like Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Ghost Dog, Twin Falls Idaho, and Cookie’s Fortune and just being blown away. I took a screenwriting class and loved it so much that, instead of carrying on along whichever path I had set for myself up to that point, I applied to film school.
While I enjoyed film school, I soon realised something that my screenwriting class had not prepared me for, filmmaking is a highly collaborative art form. It is also one that requires A LOT of money… and the money often ends up shaping the kind of art that can be produced. I have absolutely no regrets about going to film school. Readers tell me that they find my work ‘cinematic’, which is nice. I like to think that film school made me appreciate the visual elements of storytelling.
Will I go back to creating film? I think not. I was in film school during the era when analog was giving way to digital. There has been so much change, in terms of technological advances, since the early 2000s that I think I would probably be overwhelmed on a modern film set. However, I hope to be able to adapt my novels into screenplays. I really look forward to that.
1 Like
What’s your next project? Will it also concern Zimbabwe’s history?
1 Like
Yes, my next project is also set in the City of Kings and follows a group of four friends over the years — from the time they are six years old to the time they are middle-aged. Since it spans several years, it does touch on Zimbabwe’s history, but it is really more concerned with exploring contemporary issues that are affecting and shaping the country such as diaspora and globalization. For those who have read The Creation of Half-Broken People, there is a connection to that novel that I hope readers will find satisfying. I am really excited by this latest novel, it continues my series of interconnected stories, but is also very different from anything that I have written before.
1 Like
How exciting, I am already looking forward to this new work and I can’t wait to see the connection to The Creation of Half-Broken People. I know titles are not always fixed, do you have a working title? If not, no pressure.
2 Likes
King Solomon’s Mines is many things at once: a Victorian adventure novel that is set in Africa; a text that normalizes the avarice, rapacity and violence of empire; an unabashedly racist book (as you state) that dehumanizes black people and sees women only through a misogynistic lens. It is not the best place to encounter one of the first written accounts about your ethnic group. It is a work that deserves to be revisited from another perspective. In retrospect, I realize that once I understood all that King Solomon’s Mines was, I had no choice but to find a way out of that narrative for Gagool… and for me.
I have recently written about this topic more at length here:
and here:
@Dee_Driscole
Hi Dee.
Thank you for the question.
The title of my next novel is The Last of the Innocents.
1 Like
Thank you! And when do you think it’ll be out? I’m very much looking forward to it as well.
1 Like
I think it’s interesting that your novels aren’t available in audiobook format (at least I’m not seeing them at Audible.com so I’m making an assumption). Was that your choice, and if so, what led you to make that decision?
@kim.kovacs
Thank you.
These are early days yet… I am just about to work through the first draft of the manuscript. I have no idea how many revisions are ahead of me. Hopefully, I will be able to send a polished manuscript off to the publisher before the end 2025. If all goes well then the book will be on shelves in 2027 
1 Like
Our sincerest thanks to Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu for visiting with us. We’re really looking forward to your next novel and wish you the greatest success.