We Need New Stories

In partnership with Nottingham City Libraries and funded by the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund, “We Need New Stories” is an intergenerational oral history project that runs alongside our new touring production of ‘We Need New Names’ by Mufaro Makubika, based on the book by NoViolet Bulawayo.

“We Need New Stories” saw us work with young people of African heritage in the Nottingham area from Autumn 2022 onwards. After undertaking training in oral history, photography, film-making and audio skills, the young people interviewed first-generation Zimbabwean migrants in Nottingham, using their new skills to gather the interviewees’ personal stories of migration. Professional playwright Zodwa Nyoni then dramatised these interviews into a series of audio plays. The audio plays are now available for free online.

Young people received first-hand experience of working in a creative environment and took portrait photographs of the interviewees under the guidance of a professional photographer. They shadowed professional directors, actors and sound designers during the recording process of the interviews and the audio dramas created from them. As well as being released online, the final audio dramas will be showcased in a pop-up touring exhibition that accompanies the tour of WE NEED NEW NAMES, along with a range of photography, and personal ephemera from the people that were interviewed.

The recorded interviews and accompanying material will be stored in Nottingham City Libraries archive so that future generations can access them; and will be made available online via Fifth Word’s and Nottingham Libraries websites. The project will help share personal migrant experiences and will celebrate the integral contribution of people from the African diaspora to Nottingham’s social heritage.

Credits
Writer: Zodwa Nyoni
Director: Anastasia Osei-Kuffour
Sound Designer: Adam McCready
Producers: Saziso Phiri & Laura Ford 

Ep5. Munashe’s Story: KEEPING NOTES
Read by: Kudzai Mangombe & Matthew Biddulph

What is We Need New Stories?

We Need New Stories is a series of 9 short new audio stories inspired by oral history interviews of Zimbabwean-born residents living in Nottingham.

Everyone featured in the oral histories were interviewed on camera in October 2022 by young people from the African diaspora. The resulting stories have been dramatised by playwright Zodwa Nyoni and recorded by actors.

You can view the original oral history interviews on each of the episode pages on Fifth Word's Website and in person at Nottingham Local Studies Library. The series also contains a bonus episode featuring an interview between playwright Zodwa Nyoni and director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour about the making of these audio stories.

All episodes are available for free on major listening platforms. Some stories contain sensitive subject matter including references to violence and racism.

This project has been supported by the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund, Nottingham Playhouse and The Space.

Welcome to Fifth Word's
We Need New Stories.

Episode five, Munashe’s
Story Keeping Notes written

by Zodwa Nyoni and directed
by Anastasia Osei-Kuffour.

Note seven, 2:07
AM, in my bed.

What is it about the quiet
of late nights that awakens

my deep thoughts, my mind?

A Japanese puzzle box step by
step, a memory is revealed.

Lately, I am returning
to three year old

Munashe in my dreams.

She is needing something.

Missing someone.

I cannot see the
stranger's face clearly.

Note 16, 19 :15,
at the bus stop.

We are daughters of mothers
who left us before we knew

how to say I need you.

We are daughters of mothers
whose wombs adopted and

gave birth to us again.

We did not distance their
love by calling them aunts.

Mainini, small mother
was the substitute for

my mother who'd gone.

Note 20, 21: 25
in the kitchen.

She sends presents
from Nottingham.

I do not wear clothes
that belong to me.

I wear what my
mother hopes I am.

How do I tell her that I am
not the girl she imagines

without being ungrateful?

Munashe, 11 years old.

Note 23, 01.33 AM the toilet.

I shouldn't have
turned on the lights.

Cousins are, to me, what
air is to lungs, life.

I should call them more.

Note 24, 01.39am AM
under the covers.

I cannot sleep now.

I pray often.

I kept asking God the
same question, when?

Visas denied.

Seeing my mother, denied.

Again, again, again, again.

Note 25 1:50 AM still
under the covers.

Why do brains think the most
when it's time to sleep?

Dreams deferred can become
romanticized fantasies

before they shivel up
like a raisin in the sun.

Note 26 02:17 AM between
awake and dreaming

The elderswarn: keep
your plan silent.

Many listening is a bad omen.

I did not say
goodbye to friends.

I snuck out of my life with
a passport suitcase and

a broken phone, heading
towards a long waited reunion

Note 31 11 AM, lecture.

Good morning, first years.

Welcome to the most
fascinating course

you will ever do.

Sociologists are most
interested in the causes

and consequences of
social behavior such as

crime or discrimination.

Sociology will provide you
with an understanding of the

impact of the socialization
process on behavior,

culture, roles, and identity.

With a reference to gender,
class, age, and ethnicity.

She sits me down,
explains woman to woman

that she took refuge in
this foreign country.

I am not sure if I can
do the same in her.

How do we become mother
to daughter again?

Note 37, 17 :26, late
night shift, care home.

I am writing.

Less and less thoughts
are scattered.

I am fractured.

Order number 53.

Note 45.

Order number 53.

23: 09.

McDonald's.

Who am I in this world?

No one looks like me.

The black girl everywhere.

The labor of pronouncing
my name cannot be induced.

It is breached into English.

Who am I in this world?

Sasha, they call me.

Note 46, train station.

Poetry is to me as
glass is to reflection.

Scene.

Note 47, 13: 34.

Platform two.

Long Eaton.

I hate changes.

I buy my own clothes.

Thrift the odd to
fashion something new.

Something that fits better
than mass production.

I am not a copy.

I am a rare find.

Note 49, 14:01,
between cities.

Sometimes they creep
up on me like a breeze

on the back of my neck.

Memories of back home.

Here I am an only child.

There, I am a big sister.

Here, I am choices.

There, I am limitations.

Now, when I say home,
where do I mean?

All tickets and
passes, please.

All tickets and passes.

Note 50, 14:37.

Still moving between places.

I am the age my mother
was when she had me.

At 23, I am raising
complicated questions.

Note 51, 16:12,
Piccadilly Line.

Democracy is a cocked
gun loaded with lies.

The politician presses the
barrel against my temple.

He tells me my life
is a sacrifice needed,

Note 52, 16:39,
Piccadilly Line.

How do you inherit
an African country?

Hmm.

Probably the same way you
inherit a British monarchy,

power divinely chosen by God
or men pretending to be holy.

Note 53, 18:55 Wagamama.

My education was a city
of colonial street names.

Each turn had me lost.

I had to find a way back home.

Following ancestral
stars in the dark.

Note 60, 4:30 AM, at home
in my bedroom, on the floor,

looking in the mirror.

Look at me, of two,
like ying and yang.

Like cold and heat.

Like winter and summer.

Like quiet and loud.

Like Zimbabwe and England.

Here I am the stranger.

No more.

Thank you for listening.

If you enjoyed this episode,
please share with others.

All episodes in this series
are available on major

listening platforms and
on Fifth Word's website.

The next episode in this
series is Rita's story.

Dear Rita.