By Musonda Mukuka
Award-winning author Ingrid Nayame has returned to the literary scene with her fifth publication, a collection of short stories entitled Hills and Wildflowers.
Nayame is known as an avid writer of fiction in a country where the majority of published works are non-fiction. In 2023, Nayame took home two trophies at the Ngoma Awards for her novel Hymn for the Womb.
Nayame’s work has long been praised by readers for its unflinching approach to complex issues and emotions, as well as the relatability of her characters and settings.
With Hills and Wildflowers, Nayame brings eight new stories to the world, each titled after a wildflower that grows in Zambia.
With Hills and Wildflowers, Nayame had every intention of writing a novel. “I started writing a novel. I knew what I wanted the story to be like and the type of characters I needed to drive it.
Then one day, the story escaped me. Maybe that was because I had so many ideas floating around that it stopped making sense.
So I was going through my folder where I keep all the manuscripts I’ve been writing for a long time, and I came across the story that is now Daisy’s Forgotten Path (it’s story number six).
I thought, hmmmm, what was I thinking for me to come up with a story like that? Then I realised I started looking for other stories I had written before, and there were eleven in total, but I chose only eight.”
This rediscovery led to a collection of colourful short stories, which served as a creative exercise as well as a publishing one. “I’m not good at writing short stories, so Hills and Wildflowers was my way of teaching myself how to write them.
Unfortunately, I broke some rules while writing these stories, which I feel is okay because the rules made me realise that stories started to feel forced.” Nayame spent two years sharpening the stories before hitting publish.
The stories include Buttercup’s Whisper, in which a young woman discovers that love often grants us the gift of second chances. The Shadow of Wild Indigo chronicles a lonely man’s quest for truth and redemption.
In The Scent of Evening Primrose, a grieving widower searches for connection in the most unexpected places. Meanwhile, The Smile of Black-Eyed Susan introduces a woman who has decided to close her heart to relationships until fate has other plans.
The stories in Hills and Wildflowers explore themes of love, grief, loneliness, and human connection. According to Nayame, the collection’s recurring focus on “life, love and death” was not intentional, but naturally emerged as she compiled the stories together.
Inspiration for the book came from conversations, places she has visited, people she has encountered, and questions she continues to ask about life itself.
As a self-published author, Nayame also spoke candidly about the financial challenges writers face in Zambia. She noted that producing quality work requires significant personal investment, from editing and cover design to marketing and distribution.
Despite this, she praised readers for supporting and promoting her work independently, while calling for greater institutional support for writers through grants and arts structures that would allow authors to sustain themselves through writing.
Though Hills and Wildflowers has already sold out locally, the collection remains available internationally through Amazon in both paperback and e-book formats.
“There’s a disclaimer in my author’s note in the book. I said none of these stories are relatable. I rarely write stories to teach a lesson at the end of it all.
I tried that before, and I discovered that I sounded too preachy, and I don’t like being preachy. I write so that people can escape their reality for a bit and just mingle with the characters they will meet in between pages,” Nayame added.
End…
Picture: Ingrid Nayame