Tsitsi Dangarembga

Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer Tsitsi Dangarembga (born 4 February 1959) 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She has won other literary honours, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the PEN Pinter Prize. In 2020, her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2022, Dangarembga was convicted in a Zimbabwe court of inciting public violence, by displaying, on a public road, a placard asking for reform; her conviction was later overturned.

Early life and education

Tsitsi Dangarembga was born on 4 February 1959 in Mutoko, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), a small town where her parents taught at the nearby mission school.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite journal</ref> Her mother, Susan Dangarembga, was the first black woman in Southern Rhodesia to obtain a bachelor's degree,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and her father, Amon, would later become a school headmaster.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> From the ages of two to six, Dangarembga lived in England, while her parents pursued higher education.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4">Template:Cite web</ref> There, as she has recalled, she and her brother began to speak English "as a matter of course and forgot most of the Shona we had learnt."<ref name=":4" /> She returned to Rhodesia with her family in 1965, the year of the colony's Unilateral Declaration of Independence.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /> In Rhodesia, she reacquired Shona, but considered English, the language of her schooling, her first language.<ref name=":4" />

In 1965, she moved with her family to Old Mutare, a Methodist mission near Umtali (now Mutare) where her father and mother took up respective positions as headmaster and teacher at Hartzell High School.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> Dangarembga, who had begun her education in England, enrolled at Hartzell Primary School, before going to board at the Marymount Mission convent school.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":6" /> She completed her A-Levels at Arundel School, an elite, predominantly white girls' school in the capital, Salisbury (today Harare),<ref name=":2" /> and in 1977 went to the University of Cambridge to study medicine<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" /> at Sidney Sussex College.<ref name="Sidney Sussex">Template:Cite web</ref> There, she experienced racism and isolation and left after three years, returning in 1980 to Zimbabwe several months before the country's independence.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" />

Dangarembga worked briefly as a teacher, before taking up studies in medicine and psychology at the University of Zimbabwe while working for two years as a copywriter at a marketing agency.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> She joined the university drama club, and wrote and directed several of the plays the group performed.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" /> She also became involved with the theatre group Zambuko, during which she participated in the production of two plays, Katshaa! and Mavambo.<ref name=":1" /> She later recalled, "There were simply no plays with roles for black women, or at least we didn't have access to them at the time. The writers in Zimbabwe were basically men at the time. And so I really didn't see that the situation would be remedied unless some women sat down and wrote something, so that's what I did!"<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4" /> She wrote three plays during this period: Lost of the Soil (1983), She No Longer Weeps, and The Third One.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" /> During these years, she also began reading works by African-American women writers and contemporary African literature, a shift from the English classics she had grown up reading.<ref name=":0" />

Career

1980s and 1990s

In 1985, Dangarembga's short story "The Letter" won second place in a writing competition arranged by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and was published in Sweden in the anthology Whispering Land.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> In 1987, her play She No Longer Weeps, which she wrote during her university years, was published in Harare.<ref name=":1" /><ref>"Book Reviews: She No Longer Weeps by Tsitsi Dangaremgba" Template:Webarchive, Eduzim.</ref> Her first novel, Nervous Conditions, was published in 1988 in the United Kingdom, and a year later in the United States.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" /> She wrote it in 1985, but experienced difficulties getting it published; rejected by four Zimbabwean publishers, she eventually found a willing publisher in the London-based Women's Press.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" /> Nervous Conditions, the first novel written in English by a black woman from Zimbabwe, received domestic and international acclaim, and was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa region) in 1989.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5">Template:Cite news</ref> Her work is included in the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nervous Conditions is considered one of the best African novels ever written,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and was included on the BBC's 2018 list of top 100 books that have shaped the world.<ref name="Daily News ZM">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1989, Dangarembga went to Germany to study film direction at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" /> She produced a number of films while in Berlin, including a documentary aired on German television.<ref name=":1" /> In 1992, she founded Nyerai Films, a production company based in Harare.<ref name=":0" /> She wrote the story for the film Neria, made in 1991, which became the highest-grossing film in Zimbabwean history.<ref name=":7">LEZ (7 September 2013), "From Neria to Zollywood: The State of Zimbabwean Film", eZimbabwe.</ref> Her 1996 film Everyone's Child, the first feature film directed by a black Zimbabwean woman, was shown internationally, including at the Dublin International Film Festival.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The film, shot on location in Harare and Domboshava, follows the tragic stories of four siblings after their parents die of AIDS.<ref name=":1" />

2000 onwards

In 2000, Dangarembga moved back to Zimbabwe with her family, and continued her work with Nyerai Films. In 2002, she founded the International Images Film Festival.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her 2005 film Kare Kare Zvako won the Short Film Award and Golden Dhow at the Zanzibar International Film Festival, and the African Short Film Award at the Milan Film Festival.<ref name=":0" /> Her 2006 film Peretera Maneta received the UNESCO Children's and Human Rights Award and won the Zanzibar International Film Festival.<ref name=":0" /> She is the executive director of the organization Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe and the founding director of the International Images Film Festival for Women of Harare (IIFF).<ref name="AFF">Template:Cite web</ref> As of 2010, she has also served on the board of the Zimbabwe College of Music for five years, including two years as chair.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> She is a founding member of the Institute for Creative Arts for Progress for Creative Arts in Africa (ICAPA).<ref>"Our Board", ICAPA.</ref>

Asked about her lack of writing since Nervous Conditions, Dangarembga explained in 2004: "firstly, the novel was published only after I had turned to film as a medium; secondly, Virginia Woolf's shrewd observation that a woman needs £500 and a room of her own in order to write is entirely valid. Incidentally, I am moving and hope that, for the first time since Nervous Conditions, I shall have a room of my own. I'll try to ignore the bit about £500."<ref>"Interview with the Author" (p. 212, Nervous Conditions, Ayebia Clarke Publishing Ltd, 2004).</ref> Indeed, two years later in 2006, she published her second novel, The Book of Not, a sequel to Nervous Conditions.<ref name=":1" /> She also became involved in politics, and in 2010 was named education secretary of the Movement for Democratic Change political party led by Arthur Mutambara.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> She cited her background coming from a family of educators, her brief stint as a teacher, and her "practical, if not formal," involvement in the education sector as preparing her for the role.<ref name=":3" /> She completed doctoral studies in African studies at Humboldt University of Berlin, and wrote her PhD thesis on the reception of African film.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" />

She was a judge for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2016, she was selected by the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center for their Artists in Residency program.<ref>Koinange, Wanjiru (11 May 2016), "Announcing the Bellagio Center Residency Award Winners", Africa Centre.</ref> Her third novel, This Mournable Body, a sequel to The Book of Not and Nervous Conditions, was published in 2018 by Graywolf Press in the US, and in the UK by Faber and Faber in 2020, described by Alexandra Fuller in The New York Times as "another masterpiece"<ref name=":5" /> and by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma in The Guardian as "magnificent ... another classic".<ref>Tshuma, Novuyo Rosa (24 January 2020). "This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga review – a sublime sequel", The Guardian.</ref> This Mournable Body was one of the six novels shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, chosen from 162 submissions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In an interview with Bhakti Shringarpure for Bomb magazine, Dangaremgba discussed the rationale behind her novels: "My first publisher, the late Ros de Lanerolle, asked me to write a sequel to Nervous Conditions. Writing the sequel, I realized the second book would deal only with the middle part of the protagonist's life. ... [and] offered no answers to the questions raised in Nervous Conditions concerning how life with any degree of agency is possible for such people. ... I was captivated by the idea of writing a trilogy about a very ordinary person who starts off as an impoverished rural girl in colonial Rhodesia and has to try to build a meaningful life for herself. The form has also allowed me to engage with some aspects of Zimbabwe's national development from a personal rather than a political angle."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In 2019, Dangarembga was announced as a finalist for the St. Francis College Literary Prize, a biennial award recognizing outstanding fiction by writers in the middle stages of their careers, which was eventually won that year by Samantha Hunt.<ref>Schmerl, Leah (15 August 2019), "St. Francis College Announces Finalists for the Biennial $50,000 SFC Literary Prize", St. Francis College.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On 31 July 2020 Dangarembga was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, ahead of anti-corruption protests.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Later that year she was on the list of the BBC's 100 Women announced on 23 November 2020.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In September 2020, Dangarembga was announced as the University of East Anglia's inaugural International Chair of Creative Writing, from 2021 to 2022.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Dangarembga won the 2021 PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression, given annually since 2005 to honour writers who continue working despite being persecuted for their writing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In June 2021, it was announced that Dangarembga would be the recipient of the prestigious 2021 Peace Prize awarded by the German book publishers and booksellers association,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> making her the first black woman to be honoured with the award since it was inaugurated in 1950.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In July 2021, she was elected to honorary Fellowship of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.<ref name="Sidney Sussex" />

Dangarembga was chosen by English PEN as winner of the 2021 PEN Pinter Prize, awarded annually to a writer who, in the words spoken by Harold Pinter on receiving his Nobel Prize for Literature, casts an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze upon the world and shows a "fierce intellectual determination... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In her acceptance speech at the British Library on 11 October 2021, Dangarembga named the Ugandan novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija as the International Writer of Courage Award.<ref>{"PEN Pinter Prize 2021: Tsitsi Dangarembga", British Library.</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In 2022, Dangarembga was selected to receive a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for fiction.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In June 2022, an arrest warrant was issued against Tsitsi Dangarembga.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She was prosecuted for incitement to public violence and violation of anti-Covid rules after an anti-government demonstration organized at the end of July 2020.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 28 September 2022, Dangarembga was officially convicted of promoting public violence after she and her friend, Julie Barnes, walked around Harare in a peaceful protest while holding placards that read “We Want Better. Reform Our Institutions”. Dangarembga was given a $110 fine and a suspended six-month jail sentence. She announced that she planned to appeal her verdict amid human rights groups claiming that her prosecution was a direct result of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s attempts to “silence opposition in the long-troubled southern African country”.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 8 May 2023, it was announced that Dangarembga's conviction had been overturned after she appealed the initial conviction in 2022.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Selected awards and honours

• 1989: Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa region) for Nervous Conditions
• 2005: Kare Kare Zvako wis the Short Film Award and Golden Dhow at the Zanzibar International Film Festival, and the African Short Film Award at the Milan Film Festival
• 2018: Nervous Conditions named by the BBC as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2020: This Mournable Body shortlisted for the Booker Prize<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• 2021: PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression
• 2021: 2021 Peace Prize from the German book publishers and booksellers association<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2021: Honorary Fellowship of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
• 2021: PEN Pinter Prize from English PEN
• 2022: Windham-Campbell Literature Prize (fiction)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2022: Royal Society of Literature International Writer<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

List of works

Written works

• The Third One (play)
• Lost of the Soil (play), 1983
• The Letter (short story), 1985, published in Whispering Land
• She No Longer Weeps (play), 1987
• Nervous Conditions (novel), 1988, Template:ISBN
• The Book of Not (novel), 2006, Template:ISBN
• This Mournable Body (novel), 2018, Template:ISBN
• Black and Female (essays), 2022, Template:ISBN <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Filmography

• Neria (1993) (story writing)
• The Great Beauty Conspiracy (1994)
• Passport to Kill (1994)
• Schwarzmarkt (1995)
• Everyone's Child (1996)
• The Puppeteer (1996)
• Zimbabwe Birds, with Olaf Koschke (1988)
• On the Border (2000)
• Hard Earth – Land Rights in Zimbabwe (2001)
• Ivory (2001)
• Elephant People (2002)
• Mother’s Day (2004)
• High Hopes (2004)
• At the Water (2005)
• Growing Stronger (2005)
• Kare Kare Zvako (2005)
• Peretera Maneta (2006)
• The Sharing Day (2008)
• I Want a Wedding Dress (2010)
• Ungochani (2010)
• Nyami Nyami Amaji Abulozi (2011)

External links

• A recording of Dangarembga's reading of her "Electing Zimbabwe"
• Template:Books and Writers
• [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 0199483

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• "Statement of support for Tsitsi Dangarembga", New Writing, University of East Anglis, October 2020.
• Leo Robson, "Why Tsitsi Dangarembga is one of the most remarkable authors the Booker Prize has ever celebrated", New Statesman, 13 November 2020.
• Mia Swart, "Tsitsi Dangarembga: Life in an 'ever-narrowing Zimbabwe'", AlJazeera, 16 November 2020.
• Catherine Taylor, "Tsitsi Dangarembga on her arrest, the Booker Prize and why she won't leave Zimbabwe: 'It's an ongoing trauma'", i, 16 November 2020.
• Troy Fielder, "UEA Live: An Emptiness That Hurts, In Conversation With Tsitsi Dangarembga" Template:Webarchive, Concrete, 27 February 2021.