Shimmer Chinodya

Writer

Belonging to a rare class of exceptional writers, Shimmer Chinodya is a novelist born in 1964 in the City of Gweru. He can be classified as an elder in the literary arts genre. Shimmer studied at Mambo Primary School.

He was expelled from Goromonzi High School after demonstrating against Ian Smith’s government.

He graduated from the University of Zimbabwe, and the University of Iowa, with an MA in creative writing, in 1985. His political consciousness had a bearing on his writings that are pregnant with latent meanings and expressions.

He won the 1990 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Africa region. Most of his novels were prescribed to be set books (worthy to be studied in high schools) by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education such as Harvest of Thorns (which won the Commonwealth Writer’s Award for the Best Book in Africa in 1990).

Besides, some of his accolades include the following: National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) Outstanding Book for Strife (2007) and the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. Some of his writings were even studied in tertiary institutions. Chinodya also wrote the script of the award-winning film, Everyone’s Child.

The Noma Award for Publishing in Africa arguably remains one of the outstanding awards that he scooped in his literary arts colourful journey. Dew in the Morning, Harvest of Thorns, Child of War amongst others, are some of the outstanding books penned by this iconic figure in the literary arts genre.

Like other earlier educated writers, he became a teacher from 1981–83, and subsequently a curriculum developer under the Ministry of Education. In 1985, he graduated with a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa in the United States of America (USA). Between 1995 and 1997, Shimmer Chinodya was at the University of St Lawrence in the USA where he was a Distinguished Visiting Professor.

His call as a prolific writer came early in his life. Shimmer began to write short stories after he had completed his primary education. He wrote his first novel, Dew in the Morning when he was just 18; the novel was however published in 1982.

Since then, Chinodya began to bask in glory publishing novels, ranging from children’s storybooks, secondary school textbooks (Step Ahead: New Secondary School English Coursebook 1-4) and numerous poems in different anthologies. Two of his novels were translated into German is Harvest of Thorns and Strife. Harvest of Thorns was presented as a play during the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) 2013 edition.

His peers in writing include late iconic heroes like Chenjerai Hove Dambudzo Marechera and Charles Mungoshi. Several anthologies also contain his writings like Soho Square (1990), Writer’s Territory (1999) and Tenderfoots 2001.

The story of the development of literary arts in Zimbabwe can never be complete without the name Shimmer Chinodya. Like his peers alluded to above, he is a rousing figure in the art of writing.— NACZ.