Olivia Mahwaya Sibanda (born 1979) is a Zimbabwean novelist writing in Ndebele. In 2020 a manuscript of her third novel, at that point entitled Futhi Ya, won the inaugural Ndebele writing award from the Barbara Clara Makhalisa Nkala Literary Trust. [1] She won $250 and help with the publication of her novel. [2]
Born in Filabusi, Olivia Sibanda was educated at Tshazi Secondary School. After pursuing another career, she started trying to write in 2012. Her first novel Ukuzala was published in 2017. [1]
Work by Sibande has been set for A-Level examination in Ndebele. [3]
Amy Ruth Tan is an American author best known for her novel The Joy Luck Club (1989), which was adapted into a 1993 film. She is also known for other novels, short story collections, children's books, and a memoir.
Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Sarah Caroline Sinclair, known professionally as Olivia Colman, is an English actress. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, two Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards.
Northern Ndebele, also called Ndebele, isiNdebele saseNyakatho, Zimbabwean Ndebele or North Ndebele, associated with the term Matabele, is a Bantu language spoken by the Northern Ndebele people which belongs to the Nguni group of languages.
Ariel Geltman Graynor is an American actress, known for her roles in TV series such as I'm Dying Up Here, The Sopranos, and Fringe, in stage productions such as Brooklyn Boy and The Little Dog Laughed, and in films such as Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, The Sitter and For a Good Time, Call... She also starred as Meredith Davis on the short-lived CBS television sitcom Bad Teacher in 2014 and as Leslie Abramson in the Netflix drama series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story in 2024.
Lisa Olivia Munn is an American actress. After an internship at a news station in Tulsa, she moved to Los Angeles where she began her professional career as a television host for the gaming network G4, primarily on the series Attack of the Show! from 2006 until 2010. Munn appeared as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2010 to 2011. She is known for her three-season-long portrayal of Sloan Sabbith in Aaron Sorkin's HBO political drama series The Newsroom (2012–2014).
Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her youth served as inspiration for her novels–the fictional "Shirley Falls, Maine" is the setting of four of her nine novels.
Rachel Cusk is a British novelist and writer.
Highlanders Football Club, or more commonly Highlanders F.C., is a Zimbabwean football club based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe that plays in the Zimbabwe Premier Soccer League. It is also known colloquially as iBosso, Amahlolanyama.
Nyamandlovu also known as Nyamayendlovu is a rural district located roughly 40 km northwest of Bulawayo and in Matabeleland North Province of Zimbabwe. Nyamayendlovu loosely translated means "elephant meat" in the local language, isiNdebele.
Olivia Wilde is an American actress, director and producer. She played Remy "Thirteen" Hadley on the medical-drama television series House (2007–2012), and appeared in the action films Tron: Legacy (2010) and Cowboys & Aliens (2011), the romantic drama film Her (2013), the comedy film The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013), and the horror film The Lazarus Effect (2015). She made her Broadway debut playing Julia in 1984 (2017).
The Red Pyramid is a 2010 fantasy-adventure novel based on Egyptian mythology written by Rick Riordan. It is the first novel in The Kane Chronicles series. The novel was first published in the United States on May 4, 2010, by Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Publishing Worldwide. It has been published in hardcover, audiobook, ebook, and large-print editions, and has been translated into 19 languages from its original English.
Olivia Kate Cooke is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Alicent Hightower in the fantasy drama television series House of the Dragon (2022–present). In television, she has starred as Emma Decody in the thriller Bates Motel (2013–2017), Becky Sharp in the period drama Vanity Fair (2018), and a spy in the thriller Slow Horses (2022).
katherena vermette is a Canadian writer, who won the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry in 2013 for her collection North End Love Songs. Vermette is of Métis descent and originates from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was an MFA student in creative writing at the University of British Columbia.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan-British novelist and short story writer. Her doctoral novel, The Kintu Saga, was shortlisted and won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. It was published by Kwani Trust in 2014 under the title Kintu. Her short story collection, Manchester Happened, was published in 2019. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story "Let's Tell This Story Properly", and emerged Regional Winner, Africa region. She was the Overall Winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She was longlisted for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature. She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. In 2018, she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in the fiction category. In 2021, her novel The First Woman won the Jhalak Prize.
Sue Wootton is a New Zealand writer, specialising in poetry and short fiction.
Olivia Isabel Rodrigo is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She first became known for starring on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark (2016–2019) and the Disney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019–2022). Shifting focus onto her recording career, Rodrigo signed with Geffen Records to release her 2021 single, "Drivers License", which peaked atop the US Billboard Hot 100 and raised her to international prominence. Her debut studio album, Sour (2021), was released in May of that year; it spawned her second number-one song, "Good 4 U", and won her three Grammy Awards. The documentary Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U followed in 2022, which chronicles the creative process of Sour. The following year, she released her second studio album, Guts (2023).
Olivia Laing is a British writer, novelist and cultural critic. She is the author of five works of non-fiction, To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring,The Lonely City, Everybody, The Garden Against Time, as well as an essay collection, Funny Weather, and a novel, Crudo. In 2018, she was awarded the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for non-fiction and in 2019, the 100th James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crudo. In 2019 she became an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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.
Claire Joanna Skuse is an English novelist and lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University. She began her career writing young adult (YA) fiction, publishing five novels, and was named as a key figure in the "rise of YA antiheroines" by The Guardian. She then moved into adult thrillers with the release of Sweetpea (2017) and its sequels.