With the Writer Spotlight Series, we create a positive image for young girls to refer to by having conversations with different writers and illustrators. This month we have been doing Q&As with many writers, to get to know more about them and their work. Here, we are showcasing all the questions we have asked author Rufaro Faith Mazarura. We discuss her debut romance novel, Let The Games Begin.
Welcome Rufaro. Tell us about yourself.Hey I’m Rufaro! I’m the author of Let The Games Begin, a novel set at a fictional version of the 2024 Olympics that follows two twenty somethings over the course of one brilliantly imperfect summer in Athens as they navigate their quarter life crises, find themselves and fall in love. When I’m not writing fiction, I work as a podcast producer and I love working on stories about history, pop culture and the way the online world shapes our in person lives.
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind Let the Games Begin?Some of my favourite films and TV shows are about athletes. I love how high the stakes are and the sense of community you can see across a team and so I tear up whenever I watch someone come close to achieving their dreams.
I spent a lot of the summer of 2021 switching between watching the Olympics and fictional sports stories and the deeper I delved into the world of professional athletics, the more fascinated I became by what it takes to become a professional athlete and the origin stories behind some of history’s most celebrated sports people. I also love summer romance novels and I couldn’t help but wonder what each of the athletes’ personal lives must look like. By the end of the summer, I was itching to read a sports romance set at the Olympics, so I decided to write one.
Let the games begin
Available to buy here
Curiosity! I’m not an athlete nor have I ever been to the Olympics, but I used to always wonder what life looked like behind the scenes of such an exciting large-scale event. So, I started doing a bunch of research about the Summer Games by watching documentaries and vlogs from the point of view of different athletes. Each time I learned something, I wanted to dig even deeper.
So, writing this book gave me the opportunity to completely immerse myself in the world of the Olympics and feed my curiosity. But then I began to fall in love with all of my characters, I wanted to see how their stories played out so much that once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. You know the feeling you get when you reach the good part of a book at 1am and realise that you have no choice but to finish it before you fall asleep? That was the feeling I got while writing this novel, so once I started, I basically couldn’t stop.
Zeke Moyo and Olivia Nkomo are the main characters in Let the Games Begin, which is a perfect summer romance. How important is it to have stories about young Black British love?I grew up reading a lot of coming-of-age and summer romance novels, but they were rarely told from the perspective of Black British characters. So, I always knew that if I were to write stories, I would want to put Black British characters at the forefront and write about them having the regular but joyful experiences I loved reading about. I see beautiful portrayals of love and Black British people all around me in my actual life, so I wanted to write a book that combines the experiences I grew up around to give readers a story to escape into for the summer. I think romcoms provide the perfect medium to explore a wide range of life issues safe in the knowledge that in the end, you’ll get a happy ending, so writing this one was a joy.
Summer is often a time of growth and change. How does the summer setting contribute to the coming-of-age aspect of your book?When I was a teenager, I would come back to school at the start of September and feel like I was a completely different version of myself to who I’d been at the end of July. Summer was always the time where I’d step out and explore who I could become outside the confines of my regular life. So, in Let the Games Begin, I used summer to explore the idea of reinvention and how sometimes we need to leave our comfort zones and push ourselves to be a little braver in order to truly grow.
The female main character Olivia is really regimented when it comes to planning out her life, so I wanted to present her with the kind of summer that forces her to let go of her plans and surrender to the lessons this moment in her life is trying to teach her without it ever feeling too heavy. The summery setting of Greece gave me the chance to lead each character through a journey of self-exploration whilst still being able to experience a lot of fun carefree moments under the sun.
What is your personal definition of love in just three words?Joyful, intentional, belonging.
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
I love listening to podcasts, I always have an episode of This American Life or Soul Music playing in the background, but my favourite shows are 6–10-episode series that explore a story about history or pop culture. Right now, I’m in Olympic mode so I’m listening to Broomgate: A Curling Scandal which is A LOT more fascinating than it sounds! I’m trying to spend more time outside this summer so I’ve gotten into a routine of going on a hike once a month which is a great way to get out of the city and explore parts of the country I wouldn’t naturally gravitate towards.
I also always have one ‘exciting new hobby!’ on the go because I’m the kind of person who becomes obsessed with something for two months then never touches it again, right now that hobby is learning how to play a Mbira which I’m really enjoying right now, my goal is to be able to play three songs by the end of the summer.
What team will you be supporting in the Paris 2024 Olympics?
It’s always Team GB & Team Zimbabwe for me! But I love watching the American gymnasts too, so I’m really looking forward to watching their routines too.
Quick Fire Round
Would you rather have an endless summer or an endless winter?
Endless Summer, no hesitation.
Where is your happy place?
My childhood bedroom or my parents garden in the summer.
What song is always on the top of your playlist?
Going On A Feeling by Bailen
About the Author
Rufaro Faith Mazarura is a British Zimbabwean writer who grew up in Birmingham and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Surrey. She works as a podcast producer, bringing stories to life through audio, and has written and produced podcasts for the BBC, iHeartRadio, Seven Stories, and The National Centre for Children’s Books. Let the Games Begin is her debut novel.