Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure

Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure is a bilingual award-winning poet, novelist, librettist, short story writer, translator and visual artist who grew up in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. She now resides in Wales. Her novel, Weeping Tomato, won the National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for Outstanding Fiction Book, in Zimbabwe in 2025. Her poetry collection, Starfish Blossoms (2022), won the NAMA for Outstanding Poetry Book, in 2023. Some of her poems appear in Ipikai Poetry Journal, Once Upon No Time an anthology published by Empoweress Press, and Tesserae: A mosaic of poems by Zimbabwean women published by Carnelian Heart. Her visual art appears in Writing Woman Anthology – An anthology of African Asian Writers and Artists Vol.3 published by Mwanaka Media and Publishing, and in Mother Nature by Zanna Zine. In 2020 Samantha established an independent press, Carnelian Heart Publishing, to amplify the voices of Zimbabwean writers and to democratise African literature. Samantha was voted African publisher of the year in 2023 by Brittle Paper as part of their Literary Person of the year Awards.

Apparitions

They look at us foreigners like chicken droppings
And they treat us just like the chaff of grain
We’re exhausted by it; our energy depleted
Ashamed of who we are, as if we’re dim-witted

Back home our own people see us as apparitions
If you don’t have money, don’t bother returning
We no longer feel free or welcome there
Even if they drug us with tototo

Our hunger yearns for peanut butter relish
But it’s unpalatable, our palates are seared
Our hearts are constricted by a barricade
With nowhere to call home, we are apparitions