Article: Shona sculpture movement thrives in Zimbabwe. (Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)

HARARE, Zimbabwe _ On a bright sunny day in August, 1958, the blade of a road grading machine chipped off a piece of soapstone on a mountain trail east of here.

That soft stone glinting in the freshly scraped red earth of Zimbabwe's rocky Eastern Highlands caught the eye of Joram Mariga, a 31-year-old government agricultural official. Mariga never imagined then that his find would trigger the flowering of a nation of African sculptors.

``I was attracted by the color of the stone,'' Mariga remembers as if it were yesterday. ``The stone was translucent. The color was green. It was slippery if you rubbed it with your thumb.''

Mariga took out a small ...

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