Zukiswa Wanner

Zukiswa Wanner is the author of the novels The Madams (Oshun, 2006); Behind Every Successful Man (Kwela, 2008), Men of the South (Kwela 2010) and London Cape Town Joburg (Kwela, 2014). She has also written two works of nonfiction, Maid in SA (Jacana, 2013) and Hardly Working (Black Letter Media, 2018). She authored three children’s books Jama Loves Bananas (Jacana, 2011), Refilwe (Jacana, 2013), The Seven Continents: Africa (Scholastic , 2019) and Black Pimpernel: Nelson Mandela on the Run (Pushkin Press, 2022). Ms. Wanner coordinate and edited the continental anthology for Young Adults, Water Birds on The Lake Shore (Ouida Books, 2019) also published in French and Kiswahili. She has since taken the rights back for her novels and they are now under her 2018 established publishing house, Paivapo. Her Paivapo titles also include the children’s anthology Story Story, Story Come edited by Maimouna Jallow, Mukoma wa Ngugi’s We, the Scarred (originally published by Ohio University Press as Mrs Shaw), Yara Nakahanda Monteiro's Loose Ties longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and translated from Portuguese and The Daughters of Nandi by Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang. Keen to ensure that as many children as possible get access to the beautiful stories in Story Story, Story Come, she has had the book translated into isiXhosa, Tshivenda and Kiswahili and has personally translated the book into Shona. Wanner is the creator and curator of the arts initiative Artistic Encounters which has been running since 2017 and has had performances in Nairobi, Kenya, Johannesburg, South Africa and in June, Zurich, Switzerland. in 2020, she founded the first paandeemic literary festival Afrolit Sans Frontieres which morphed to Virtually Yours. In the same year, she became the first African woman to be awarded the Goethe Medal, a German state award for her contribution to cultural exchange; was selected among  the pan-Africanist New African magazine's 100 Most Influential Africans and was cited by literary blog Brittle Paper as Literary Person of the Year 2020. Ms. Wanner has delivered keynote addresses for The Time of The Writer Festival (2020), US's African Students Association Black Women's Caucus (2021) and East Africa Literary and Cultural Studies (2021).