Inside Harare Alcatraz and Other Short Stories

’’Inside Harare Alcatraz and Other Short Stories affords Andrew Chatora to tell his story with more urgency than before. Chatora roars into centre stage with this charmed confluence of the novella, the essay, the treatise, the short story and the vignette. Here is a collection to startle you out of your complacency.’’

--Memory Chirere, University of Zimbabwe

In his fourth literary offering, Andrew Chatora gives us eleven stories written in a wide range of settings and painting the lives of Zimbabweans from different walks of life. From the impenetrable Harare prison to the working class Mutare and its domain of shebeen queens to suburban Harare and a politically charged United Kingdom in a post Brexit world, Chatora takes the reader on a grand tour of outrage. Notwithstanding the shifts in scene and setting, these stories have one pervasive theme in common - they capture the suffocation and desperation of Zimbabwe and her Diaspora and fully describe the precariousness of living in environments that are increasingly hostile.

＂Inside Harare Alcatraz and Other Short Stories＂ transcends the grass is never greener perspective with a nuanced interrogation of the socio-political realities of its characters. Chatora fashions a diverse cast of characters whose complexities and eccentricities evoke the utmost in us.

Andrew Chatora grew up in the dusty streets of Dangamvura, Mutare, Zimbabwe for which he has an enduring fondness. He acknowledges it is from those formative years he got his inspiration to write, and his humble upbringing engendered his groundedness and love for the downtrodden and ordinary folks. Andrew also equally credits his mother for being a great storyteller, who incidentally was the repository of his early story arcs. Chatora has published three novels and is currently working on his fourth novel: Born Here, But Not In My Name. Chatora’s work is critically acclaimed for its depiction of migrants and the many challenges they face. He writes well on Black identity, the Black experience and what it means to try and walk straight in a crooked white world. Chatora’s third book Harare Voices and Beyond was favourably received globally and selected for a Wayfarer’s Intralingo book club nomination.