Tsitsi Dangarembga, the Zimbabwean novelist and activist who has taken the world by storm, has won another accolade.
She has been awarded the 2021 PEN Pinter Prize.
Dangarembga joins a distinguished club. The prize has previously gone to some of the world’s top writers, including Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
The judges praised her “ability to capture and communicate vital truths even amidst times of upheaval” in Zimbabwe.
Dangarembga’s This Mournable Body, the third in a trilogy of novels, was shortlisted last year for the 2020 International Booker Prize. She wrote the first book in the trilogy, Nervous Conditions, when she was 25. Doris Lessing described it as “one of the most important novels of the 20th century”
In the midst of her literary success, Dangarembga’s activism against the Harare government resulted in her arrest for protesting against corruption and censorship. She was freed on bail in August 2020.
Picture source: @efie41209591
