Feminist writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga to host the 8th Women Writers Symposium in Johannesburg
By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor
She is one of the most prominent and significant literary voices on the African continent in general and southern Africa in particular.
With a number of literary works behind her name and most of which are critically acclaimed, there is no doubt that Zimbabwe fiction writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga occupies a special space in those who love the written word. Her literary works mainly deal with issues of women with the characters she creates in her books highlighting their troubles with issues of patriarchy on the continent notorious for its treatment of women. Her novels have assisted in amplifying the voices of women who demand that they must be heard about their feeling of being driven to the margin of society irrespective of their substance.
There is no doubt that she will be a draw card to this year’s African Women Writers’ Symposium to be held in Johannesburg on October 26, 2022, as she has been confirmed by the oragnisers to be the host of the 8th literary feast that centres female literary voices. Initiated by the Department of Arts and Culture in 2012, this event is the 8th edition of this popular annual event, which in the past two years, must like other events that attract audiences was affected by the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Who is Tsitsi Dangrambga
Tsitsi Dangarembga is an award winning writer & film maker. Her literary authorship includes the collection of essays Black and Female, 2022, and the Tambudzai Trilogy comprising of Nervous Conditions, The Book of Not and This Mournable Body. This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020. In 2021 she was awarded International Pen’s Pen Award for Freedom of Expression, English Pen’s Pen Pinter Prize and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. In 2022 she was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction. For her outspokenness on human rights issues in general. Dangarembga often gets into trouble with the political elites in Zimbabwe intolerant of her views and activism on issues of human rights and the abuse of the rights by those in power. She has in the recent past been harassed, arrested and hauled to court for her stances and activism on the issue of human rights.