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Panashe Chigumadzi

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Panashe Chigumadzi
Panashe Chigumadzi - TEDxSoweto 2014
Born1991 (age 32–33)
Harare, Zimbabwe
EducationHarvard University - doctoral student
Alma materUniversity of the Witwatersrand
Notable workSweet Medicine (2015)
These Bones Will Rise Again (2017)
AwardsK Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award
Websitewww.panashechigumadzi.com

Panashe Chigumadzi (born 1991) is a Zimbabwean-born journalist, essayist and novelist, who was raised in South Africa.

Background

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Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1991, Chigumadzi grew up in South Africa.[1]

She has published her writing in a variety of media. She has been a columnist for The Guardian,[2] Die Zeit, The New York Times,[3] The Washington Post,[4] New York Review of Books[5][6] and Chimurenga.[7] She was a founder of VANGUARD, a magazine designed to give space to young, black South African women interested in how queer identities, pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness intersect.[8] At the start of her career, Chigumadzi worked as a reporter for CNBC Africa.[9]

Chigumadzi draws on the history of Zimbabwe in her work, by exploring national and personal histories and identities. Her first novel, Sweet Medicine, was published in 2015, winning the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award.[10] Her 2017 narrative essay These Bones Will Rise Again drew on Shona perspectives to explore the concept of the "Mothers of the Nation" and interrogating perceptions of Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana in Zimbabwe.[1]

While studying and writing on the legacies of Zimbabwe's struggle for independence, Chigumadzi also writes about modern identities for southern Africans. She has written on the complexities of identity dismantling the notion of a colourblind, post-Apartheid South Africa, through a reclamation of the term "coconut".[11] She is outspoken about the need for decolonisation at national and at personal levels.[12] Her 2019 essay "Why I'm No Longer Talking to Nigerians About Race" discussed her experience at the Aké Arts and Book Festival on a panel discussing whether Black Lives Matter has relevance in Africa. Chigumadzi argued that, yes, in a continent with such different experiences of racialisation under colonialism, it did.[13]

In 2015, Chigumadzi was Programme Curator of the first Abantu Book Festival.[14] In addition to her writing on literature and literary criticism, she regularly appears on BBC World Service radio.[15] She is also a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[16]

In late‑2021, Chigumadzi wrote on the concept of the Ubuntu philosophy for The Guardian and how restoration is a necessary part of reconciliation in post‑colonial societies such as South Africa.[17] Indeed:

In other words, despite the flourishing of Ubuntu in post-apartheid discourse, lending its name to software, businesses, books and philanthropic organisations, South Africa is a country in which we have, as Dladla argues, Ubuntu without Abantu.[18] Just as Black people have been dispossessed of their land, Ubuntu has been dispossessed of its deeply radical demands for ethical historical and social relations among people.[17]

Writings

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Books

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  • Sweet Medicine (Blackbird Books, 2015) – a novel exploring the 2008 economic crisis in Zimbabw [19]
  • These Bones Will Rise Again (Indigo Books, 2017) – a mixture of memoir and historical essay exploring nation-building in Zimbabwe [20][21]
  • Beautiful Hair for Landless People (forthcoming) [22]

Acknowledgements

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Awards

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Reception

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Chigumadzi's work has been studied widely, particularly within post-colonial studies. Her writing on the use of charms in Sweet Medicine led to further studies on healthcare and traditional practices in Zimbabwe.[25] Her focus on strong female characters living in economic precarity has been explored in terms of their religious beliefs and the reflection they may give to contemporary life.[26]

Education

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Chigumadzi grew up in South Africa. She studied at the University of the Witwatersrand; while there she was part of the "Transform Wits Movement", which called for significant changes to southern Africa's universities.[27] As part of her doctoral study at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University,[28] she has written about the Rhodes Must Fall protests she witnessed at the University of the Witwatersrand.[29]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Panashe Chigumadzi in conversation—Meditations on the traumas and triumphs of Zimbabwe's histories". The Johannesburg Review of Books. 6 August 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  2. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (29 July 2018). "Panashe Chigumadzi picks the best books about Zimbabwe". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  3. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (2 July 2018). "Opinion: In Zimbabwe, the Enduring Fear of Single Women". The New York Times.
  4. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (18 August 2020). "Opinion: In Zimbabwe, two political prisoners are a symbol of a repressive". Washington Post.
  5. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (9 November 2017). "Soap and South Africa's 'Fatal Intimacy'". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  6. ^ "Panashe Chigumadzi". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  7. ^ "Panashe Chigumadzi". @GI_weltweit. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  8. ^ "VANGUARD". Archived from the original on 25 September 2019. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  9. ^ "A new self-identity for Africans | Panashe Chigumadzi | TEDxJohannesburg". TEDx Talks. 18 September 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2019 – via YouTube.
  10. ^ Murua, James (8 November 2016). "South African Literary Awards 2016 winners announced". Writing Africa. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  11. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (24 August 2015). "Why I call myself a 'coconut' to claim my place in post-apartheid South Africa". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  12. ^ Ayorinde, Oladele (1 May 2019). "'Unholy Trinity' and 'Transformation' in Post-1994 South Africa: Refocusing 'Transformation' in Higher Education for Social and Economic Empowerment". lucas.leeds.ac.uk. Centre for African Studies (LUCAS). Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  13. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (April 2019). "Why I'm no longer talking to Nigerians about race". africasacountry.com. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  14. ^ Jennifer (18 August 2016). "Everything you need to know about the Abantu Book Festival". Sunday Times Books LIVE. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  15. ^ "BBC World Service - The Cultural Frontline, African writers now: Panashe Chigumadzi and Chigozie Obioma". BBC. 7 July 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  16. ^ Magwood, Michele (5 July 2019). "'New Daughters of Africa' Is a Powerful Collection of Writing by Women from the Continent". Wanted.
  17. ^ a b Chigumadzi, Panashe (31 December 2021). "Can white South Africa live up to Ubuntu, the African philosophy Tutu globalised?". The Guardian. London, United Kingdom. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 31 December 2021.
  18. ^ Abantu refers to people of the land and their underlying ethos, in contrast to colonists, settlers, and their descendants.
  19. ^ Sangweni, Yolanda (19 October 2015). "Read An Excerpt from Panashe Chigumadzi's Debut Novel". AfriPop! - What's New and Whats Next in Global African Culture. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  20. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (25 October 2018). These Bones Will Rise Again. London, United Kingdom: The Indigo Press. ISBN 978-1-9996833-0-6. Paperback edition.
  21. ^ "Panashe Chigumadzi" at Indigo Press.
  22. ^ "CHIGUMADZI, Panashe | The International Writing Program". iwp.uiowa.edu. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  23. ^ Obi-Young, Otosirieze (19 April 2019). "Remembering K Sello Duiker, Great Writer of South Africa's Post-Apartheid Generation, Who Would Have Been 45 This Month". Brittle Paper. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  24. ^ Dzonzi, Thembisile (14 August 2015). "A racy topic for Ruth First". Wits Vuvuzela. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  25. ^ Stobie, Cheryl (3 July 2018). "Charms, Blessings and Compromises: Black Women's Bodies and Decolonization in Panashe Chigumadzi's Sweet Medicine". English Academy Review. 35 (2): 37–53. doi:10.1080/10131752.2018.1523983. ISSN 1013-1752.
  26. ^ Ndlovu, Isaac (2 July 2016). "Politically induced economic precarity, syncretism and female representations in Chigumadzi's Sweet Medicine". Agenda. 30 (3): 96–103. doi:10.1080/10130950.2016.1251227. ISSN 1013-0950.
  27. ^ Pilane, Pontsho (13 April 2015). "Transform Wits: lower tuition fees, change of curriculum and better treatment of workers". The Daily Vox. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  28. ^ "Symposium: Writing Beyond 'Mugabe's Zimbabwe'". africa.harvard.edu. 20 November 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  29. ^ Chigumadzi, Panashe (2016). "Small Deaths". Transition (121): 148–163. doi:10.2979/transition.121.1.26. JSTOR 10.2979/transition.121.1.26.
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