Look at any fiction prize recently and odds are that you will find a Zimbabwean woman nominated, be it Tsitsi Dangaremba, NoViolet Bulawayo or Petina Gappah. But forget the glitz of the Booker, what is the situation inside Zimbabwe? Reporter Tawanda Mudzonga takes us on a literary tour of Zimbabwe to find out why it has produced so many talented and renowned women writers.
Tawanda speaks to emerging authors like Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Valerie Tagwira, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Sue Nyathi among others to explore what their writing can tell us about modern Zimbabwe, a country where false narratives proliferate, and public speech is often controlled. These are fearless women who write about violence, love, pain, and politics and try to tell the complicated story of the past and the present of a country which may only be four decades old, but whose people and history stretch further.
