Chenjerai Hove
Chenjerai Hove (born February 9, 1956 in Mazvihwa , Southern Rhodesia , † July 12, 2015 in Stavanger , Norway ) was a Zimbabwean writer .
resume
After attending Catholic schools in Kutama and Dete , Hove studied literature and English. In 1981 he became an editor at the publishing house Mambo Press , 1985 chief editor at the Zimbabwe Publishing House . From 1984 to 1992, Hove was chairman of the Zimbabwean Writers' Association. After criticizing Robert Mugabe's policies, he was forced to leave his home country in 2001. He went first to France and later in the United States and then to Norway into exile . He died of liver failure in 2015 .
Works
Hove wrote in both English and Shona , the language of the country's largest ethnic group. His poems first appeared in various magazines. The anthology And Now the Poets Speak , published in 1980 on the occasion of Zimbabwe's independence, contains 14 poems by Hove. In 1982 he published his first own volume of poetry, Up in Arms , and in 1985 the volume of poetry Red Hills of Home . Both volumes of poetry received an honorable mention from the Commission of the Noma Prize for African Literature , and Hove won the Noma Prize himself in 1989 for his English-language debut novel Bones . In addition to other awards, he received the German Africa Prize of the German Africa Foundation in 2001 .
In Hove's novels, one protagonist is the focus. Bones describes a mother's efforts to find her son, who has disappeared in the turmoil of the liberation struggle. In the novel Shadows (1991) the main character Johana commits suicide out of lovesickness, Ancestors (1996) is about the life of a young, deaf-mute woman. These three novels form a trilogy with which Hove wrote a kind of chronicle of his country.
bibliography
Volumes of poetry
- Up in Arms (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House 1982).
- Swimming in Floods of Tears (Gweru: Mambo Press 1983).
- Red Hills of Home (Gweru: Mambo Press 1985).
- Rainbows in the Dust (Harare: Baobab Books 1998).
- Blind Moon (Harare: Weaver Press 2003).
Novels
- Masimba Avanhu? (on Shona; Gweru: Mambo Press 1986).
- Bones (Harare: Baobab Books 1988; German Bones . Munich: Kyrill & Method 1990).
- Shadows (Harare: Baobab Books 1991; German shadow light . Munich: Marino 1996).
- Ancestors (London: Picador 1996; German ancestral dreams . Munich: Marino 1999).
Essays
- Shebeen Tales. Messages from Harare (1989; Ger. Stadtgeflüster. Sketches from an African metropolis . Frankfurt am Main: dipa 1995).
- Guardians of the Soil. Meeting Zimbabwe's Elders (1996; German guardian of the sun. Encounters with Zimbabwe's elders. Munich: Frederking and Thaler 1996).
- Palaver Finish (Harare: Weaver Press Avondale 2002).
Web links
- Literature by and about Chenjerai Hove in the catalog of the German National Library
- Portrait at brown.edu (English)
- William Grimes: Chenjerai Hove, Chronicler of Zimbabwean Struggles, Dies at 59th obituary in The New York Times , July 23, 2015.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stephen Chan: Chenjerai Hove obituary. In: theguardian.com . August 18, 2015, accessed December 30, 2016 .
- ↑ Chenjerai Hove Dies in Exile. In: newsdzezimbabwe.co.uk. July 13, 2015, archived from the original on March 3, 2016 ; accessed on December 30, 2016 .
- ↑ List of the winners of the Noma Award ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 1, 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hove, Chenjerai |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Zimbabwean writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 9, 1956 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mazvihwa , Southern Rhodesia |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 12, 2015 |
| Place of death | Stavanger , Norway |