Click on photo to download hi-res picture- photo cc Time of the Writer/Jeeva Rajgopaul

Publications:

And Now the Poets Speak (1981)

Up in Arms (1982)

Red Hills of Home (1985)

Bones (1986)

Masimba Eanhu (1986)

Ancestors (1988)

Shadows (1991)

Shebeen Tales. Messages from Harare (1994)

Click on photo to download hi-res picture- photo ccTime of the Writer/ Jeeva Rajgopaul

CHENJERAI HOVE

Zimbabwe

Novelist, poet, essayist and lecturer, Chenjarai Hove was born in Zimbabwe in 1956. He is an outspoken social critic, acutely aware of the injustices of the colonial era, as well as the turbulence of present-day Zimbabwe. He trained as a teacher and taught at several secondary schools, while pursuing his studies in literature and education through The University of South Africa (UNISA) and the University of Zimbabwe. Hove subsequently became editor for Mambo Press in Gweru and has since worked as an editor for a number of publishing companies. He was one of the founding members of the Zimbabwe Writers Union (ZIWI) and served as the body's Chairperson from 1984 to 1992. Hove has traveled extensively throughout Africa, Europe and the U.S.A. on lecture tours, and has acted as writer-in-residence at the universities of Zimbabwe, Leeds, Lewis and Clark ( Oregon ) and Leiden.

His poetry anthologies Up in Arms (1982) and Red Hills of Home (1985), both received special mentions at the Noma Awards for Publishing in Africa, and his first novel Bones (1988), which demonstrates a deep empathy for rural people, in 1989 won both the Noma Award and the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Literary Award. His concern for vulnerable and powerless people is also in evidence in his Shona novel Masimba Eanhu (1986).

In an unpublished essay entitled African literature: What shall we read?, he writes: "I seek to write books that remind us of what it is to be powerless or, indeed, to be powerful, and at the same time, strive to retrieve our historical conscience in an age when the worst can happen to both the weak and the strong in our societies made fragile by so many political and cultural forces." Chenjerai Hove is currently living in exile in France, writing, lecturing and giving poetry readings. A novel is due for publication later in 2004.