Chenjerai Hove

Born in 1954 near Zvishavane, Chenjerai Hove published his first collection of poetry, Up in Arms, in 1982 and The Red Hills of Home in 1985; the latter drew on of his deeply felt moral anguish over the brutalities of Zimbabwe's war of liberation (1967- 80), which he observed while teaching in the rural areas during the period.

His third volume of poetry, Rainbows in the Dust (Baobab Books, 1997) is a reflection on the betrayals of independence. His first novel, Bones (1988), which won him the Noma Award, shows the depth of his empathy for rural people and in particular rural women. If Hove is (or was) a nationalist, he is also fearless observer, and has never shied away from recording the violence of the new Zimbabwe in his fiction, his poetry and his journalism. An outspoken social and cultural critic, he writes a weekly column for The Zimbabwe Standard. His other novels are Shadows (Baobab Books, 1994), Ancestors (College Press, 1996); and he has two collections of essays, Shebeen Tales (Serif, London, and Baobab Books 1994), Palaver Finish (Weaver Press, 2002); the latter is also translated into Shona as Zvakwana! and Ndebele as Akudle Inqondo.