Brian Chikwava is a Zimbabwean writer and musician. His short story "Seventh Street Alchemy" was awarded the 2004 Caine Prize for African writing in English; Chikwava became the first Zimbabwean to do so. [1] He has been a Charles Pick fellow at the University of East Anglia, and lives in London. He continues to write in England and put out an album titled Jacaranda Skits. [2]
Brian Chikwava was born in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, in 1971. He went to boarding school in Bulawayo, going on to study civil engineering at Bristol University. [3] He settled in London in 2004. [4]
Chikwava won the fifth Caine Prize for African Writing in 2004 with his short story "Seventh Street Alchemy" (which was published in Writing Still, Weaver Press, Harare, 2003), [5] the first Zimbabwean to win the prize. [6] Making the award, the chair of the judges, Alvaro Ribeiro, described the story as: "A very strong narrative in which Brian Chikwava of Zimbabwe claims the English language as his own, and English with African characteristics.... A triumph for the long tradition of Zimbabwe writing in the face of Zimbabwe’s uncertain future!" [5]
His first novel Harare North was published in 2009 through Jonathan Cape. [7] Reviews were generally positive, with Mary Fitzgerald of the New Statesman writing that "in bringing to life the plight of those often marginalised by mainstream society, [Chikwava] has opened up a bleak, yet urgently important, social landscape". [8] She also praises his "wit and suggestiveness", something that Tod Wodicka, author of All Shall Be Well, agrees with, writing that "page by page, line by line, [Chikwava] has created a perfectly original and true narrative voice...full of surprises, delicious little tics, and real fire-in-the-belly creativity...but importantly, the voice comes off as effortless, and therefore true… it’s a major accomplishment". [9]
Trevor Lewis of The Sunday Times wrote that "Chikwava has created a compelling protagonist, whose back-to-front English and spiky argot throw up sly, acidly comic observations", [10] while Margaret Busby wrote in The Independent : "Chikwava has the talent to find lightness and comedy in the darkest desperation, drawing humour even out of wretchedness...occasionally among novelists one comes across a voice so distinctive...that it grips in an unforgettable way. For me, Chikwava looks set to be in that category. From first page to last, the vernacular narrative of Harare North is arresting, haunting, exciting, funny." [11]
Speaking about Zimbabwe and the reception he believed his book would receive, Chikwava said: "the Zimbabwe I knew no longer exists. The book will be published there but no one will buy it. No one buys books now. They are no longer a priority". [3]
He also took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books for which he wrote a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible [12]
Florence Onyebuchi "Buchi" Emecheta was a Nigerian-born novelist, based in the UK from 1962, who also wrote plays and an autobiography, as well as works for children. She was the author of more than 20 books, including Second Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby.
Chenjerai Hove, was a Zimbabwean poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both English and Shona. "Modernist in their formal construction, but making extensive use of oral conventions, Hove's novels offer an intense examination of the psychic and social costs - to the rural population, especially, of the war of liberation in Zimbabwe." He died on 12 July 2015 while living in exile in Norway and his death has been attributed to liver failure.
The House of Hunger (1978) is a novella/short story collection by Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera (1952–1987), his first published book, and was published three years after he left university and ten years before his death.
Tsitsi Dangarembga is a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions (1988), which was the first to be published in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe, was named by the BBC in 2018 as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world. In 2020, her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Yvonne Vera was an author from Zimbabwe. Her first published book was a collection of short stories, Why Don't You Carve Other Animals (1992), which was followed by five novels: Nehanda (1993), Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue (1996), Butterfly Burning (1998), and The Stone Virgins (2002). Her novels are known for their poetic prose, difficult subject-matter, and their strong women characters, and are firmly rooted in Zimbabwe's difficult past. For these reasons, she has been widely studied and appreciated by those studying postcolonial African literature.
The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best original short story by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language. The £10,000 prize was founded in the United Kingdom in 2000, and was named in memory of Sir Michael Harris Caine, former Chairman of Booker Group plc. Because of the Caine Prize's connection to the Booker Prize, the award is sometimes called the "African Booker". The prize is known as the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. The Chair of the Board is Ellah Wakatama.
Helon Habila Ngalabak is a Nigerian novelist and poet, whose writing has won many prizes, including the Caine Prize in 2001. He worked as a lecturer and journalist in Nigeria before moving in 2002 to England, where he was a Chevening Scholar at the University of East Anglia, and now teaches creative writing at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
Monica Arac de Nyeko is a Ugandan writer of short fiction, poetry, and essays, living in Nairobi. In 2007 she became the first Ugandan to win the Caine Prize for African Writing, with her story "Jambula Tree". She had previously been shortlisted for the prize in 2004 for "Strange Fruit", a story about child soldiers in Gulu, Northern Uganda. She is a member of FEMRITE – Uganda Women Writers Association and the chief editor of T:AP Voices. She taught literature and English at St. Mary's College Kisubi before proceeding to pursue a Master in Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Groningen. Her personal essay "In the Stars" won first prize in the Women's World, Women in War Zones essay writing competition. She has been published in Memories of Sun, The Nation, IS magazine, Poetry International and several other publications. She is one of the writers announced as part of the Africa39 project unveiled by Rainbow, Hay Festival and Bloomsbury Publishing at the London Book Fair 2014. It is a list of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40.
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is a Kenyan writer. She won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story "Weight of Whispers", which considers an aristocratic Rwandan refugee in Kenya. The story was originally published in Kwani?, the Kenyan literary magazine set up by Binyavanga Wainaina after he won the Caine Prize the previous year. In 2004, she won the Woman of the year for her contributions to the arts in Kenya. In September 2015, her critically acclaimed book Dust was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, and won Kenya's pre-eminent literary prize, the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.
Stanley Onjezani Kenani is a Malawian writer of poetry and short stories. He has performed at the Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, Poetry Africa in Durban, South Africa, Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) in Harare, Zimbabwe, and at the Struga Poetry Evenings in Macedonia. He has read with several famous African and world poets, including Mahmoud Darwish of Palestine, Natalie Handal of Palestine/USA, Carolyn Forche of USA, Dennis Brutus of South Africa, Keorapetse Kgositsile of South Africa, Shimmer Chinodya of Zimbabwe, Chirikure Chirikure of Zimbabwe, Benedicto Wokomaatani Malunga of Malawi and Alfred Msadala of Malawi among others.
Sarah Ladipo Manyika is a British-Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and essays. She is author of two well received novels, In Dependence (2009) and Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016), and has had work published in publications including Granta, Transition, Guernica, and OZY, and previously served as founding Books Editor of OZY. Manyika's work also features in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean lawyer and writer. She writes in English, though she also draws on Shona, her first language. In 2016, she was named African Literary Person of the Year by Brittle Paper. In 2017 she had a DAAD Artist-in-Residence fellowship in Berlin.
Epaphras Chukwuenweniwe Osondu predominantly known as E. C. Osondu is a Nigerian writer known for his short stories. His story Waiting won the 2009 Caine Prize for African Writing, for which he had been a finalist in 2007 with his story Jimmy Carter's Eyes. Osondu had previously won the Allen and Nirelle Galso Prize for Fiction and his story A Letter from Home was judged one of "The Top Ten Stories on the Internet" in 2006.
Harare North is a novel by the Zimbabwean author Brian Chikwava, winner of the Caine Prize in 2004. The novel was published by Jonathan Cape in 2009. A French translation was published by Editions Zoe in 2011.
NoViolet Bulawayo is the pen name of Elizabeth Zandile Tshele, a Zimbabwean author and Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (2012–14). In 2012, the National Book Foundation named her a 5 under 35 honoree.
Ellah Wakatama, OBE, Hon. FRSL, is Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University and Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. She was the founding Publishing Director of the Indigo Press. A London-based editor and critic, she was on the judging panel of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. In 2016, she was Visiting Professor & Global Intercultural Scholar at Goshen College, Indiana, and was Guest Master for the 2016 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation international journalism fellowship in Cartagena, Colombia. The former deputy editor of Granta magazine, she was senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House and assistant editor at Penguin. She is series editor of the Kwani? Manuscript Project and the editor of the anthologies Africa39 and Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.
Margaret Yvonne Busby,, Hon. FRSL, also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisher when in the 1960s she co-founded with Clive Allison (1944–2011) the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby. She edited the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992), and its 2019 follow-up New Daughters of Africa. She is a recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature. In 2020 she was voted one of the "100 Great Black Britons".
Barbara Makhalisa, also known by her married name as Barbara Nkala, is a teacher, Zimbabwean writer, Ndebele translator, novelist, editor and publisher, one of the earliest female writers published in Zimbabwe. She is the author of several books written in Ndebele, as well as in English, of which some have been used as school textbooks. Barbara is married to Shadreck Nkala. They have three adult children and six grandchildren.
Olúmìdé Pópóọlá is a London-based Nigerian-German writer, speaker and performer. Her latest novel When We Speak of Nothing was published in July 2017, by Cassava Republic Press.
Irene Staunton is a Zimbabwean publisher, editor, researcher and writer, who has worked in literature and the arts since the 1970s, both in the UK and Zimbabwe. She is co-founder and publisher of Weaver Press in Harare, having previously co-founded Baobab Books. Staunton is the editor of several notable anthologies covering oral history, short stories, and poetry, including Mothers of the Revolution: War Experiences of Thirty Zimbabwean Women (1990), Children in our Midst: Voices of Farmworker's Children (2000), Writing Still: New Stories from Zimbabwe (2003), Women Writing Zimbabwe (2008), Writing Free (2011), and Writing Mystery & Mayhem (2015).
KOCIEJOWSKI, Marius. God's Zoo: Artists, Exiles, Londoners (Carcanet, 2014), contains a biographical chapter "A Tree Grows in Brixton - Brian Chikwawa's Dark Adventure in 'Harare North'".
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