Mozambican cartoonist Sérgio Zimba launches “Dzimbadas”, his 12th book. The cartoon work will be presented to the public on February 18, 2025, at 5:30 pm, in a ceremony to be held at the Guimarães Rosa Institute (formerly the Brazil-Mozambique Cultural Center), in Maputo.
This is a book that will be presented by the comedian and cartoonist Bruno Belchior, at an event that will have as one of the guests the poet Tchaka Waka Bantu.
In his preface, the writer Marcelo Panguana states that “Dzimbadas” brings with it characters caught in the surrounding reality, with all the tics that characterize it: violence, love, schizophrenia, corruption, machismo, politics, stupidity, pettiness and other such things, and Zimba, Panguana continues, laughs at them, and so that his laughter is not alone, he calls on us to be able to laugh, all of us, even ourselves, page after page, in this provocative, sharp, elegant and therefore healthy humor. “It is precisely this sense of humor that comforts us, renews us and redeems us from all our sins. The rest is of no importance whatsoever”, he says.
According to Panguana, Zimba does not need to resort to fervent speeches from a platform to make his voice heard; he does not need to invent metaphors like those that decorate the books of his country’s most revered writers; he does not need to display pamphlets in the streets to express his discontent; all he needs is paper, a pen and Indian ink to give vent to that critical sense that manifests itself through his sense of humor.
Zimba’s cartoons satirically tell what happens in our troubled days, demonstrating that an artist must also be a man attentive to what happens in all social spheres, a man of his time, a comedian who “doesn’t make jokes for the sake of it”.
It should be noted that “Dzimbadas” is published by Editora TPC and features layout by Bruno Belchior de Madeira Zimba, revision by Pedro Muzonda and editorial coordination by Cremildo Bié.