Zukiswa Wanner (born 30 July 1976) is a South African journalist, novelist and editor born in Zambia and now based in Kenya. Since 2006, when she published her first book, her novels have been shortlisted for awards including the South African Literary Awards (SALA) and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. In 2015, she won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award for London Cape Town Joburg (2014)."2015 South African Literary Awards (SALAs) Winners Announced", Books Live, Sunday Times, 9 November 2015. In 2014, Wanner was named on the Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature.Africa39 authors, Hay Festival.
In 2020, Wanner was awarded the Goethe Medal alongside Ian McEwan and Elvira Espejo Ayca, making Wanner the first African woman to win the award. In March 2024, she returned the medal, depositing it at the German embassy in Nairobi, with her reason for doing so being cited as the German government's role in the ongoing Gaza war.
Life and career Zukiswa Wanner was born on 30 July 1976 in Lusaka, Zambia, to a South African father and a Zimbabwean mother.Biographical info: Zukiswa Wanner, Kwela. After receiving primary and secondary education in Zimbabwe, she studied for a degree in journalism at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu.
Her debut novel, The Madams, was published in 2006 and has been called "a racy and hilarious take on the black economic empowerment crowd in Johannesburg"."Book Releases: Men of the South by Zukiswa Wanner", The Africa Report, 28 June 2011. It was shortlisted for the K Sello Duiker Award of the South African Literary Awards (SALA) in 2007.Profile: Zukiswa Wanner, The Guardian. She went on to write three other novels: Behind Every Successful Man (2008), Men of the South (2010), which was shortlisted for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa region),2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize shortlists announced , 11 February 2011. as well as the Herman Charles Bosman Award,"Zukiswa Wanner", Hay Festival. and 2014's London Cape Town Joburg, which won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award in 2015.
In 2010, she co-authored two works of non-fiction: with South African photographer Alf Kumalo A Prisoner's Home, a biography on the first Mandela house 8115 Vilakazi Street, and L'Esprit du Sport with French photographer Amelie Debray. Wanner is co-editor, with Rohini Chowdhury, of the African-Asian short-story anthology Behind the Shadows (2012). In addition, Wanner has written two children's books, Jama Loves Bananas and Refilwe – an African retelling of the fairy tale "Rapunzel". In 2018, her third nonfiction work Hardly Working, a travel memoir, was published by Black Letter Media.Page 19': A border tale of visas and Eastern Europe by Zukiswa Wanner". Johannesburg Review of Books, 2 October 2017.
She was one of 66 writers to write a contemporary response to the Bible, the works being staged at the Bush Theatre and at Westminster Abbey in October 2011.Sixty-Six Books: 21st-century writers speak to the King James Bible, Oberon Books, 2011, .
She is a founding member of the ReadSA initiative, a campaign encouraging South Africans to read South African works. She also sat on the pan-African literary initiative, Writivism's Board of Trustees until September 2016. She is a regular participant at international literary events and has conducted workshops for young writers in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Denmark, Germany and Western Kenya.
In 2015 Wanner was also one of three judges of the Etisalat Prize for Literature, a Pan-African literary prize for book-length fiction, and she was the African juror for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2017. She has also been the founder and curator of Artistic Encounters in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 lockdown she founded and curated the Afrolit Sans Frontieres Festival, which first took place on 23 March via Facebook and Instagram, with further editions being held subsequently. The festival has featured prominent African writers including Maaza Mengiste, Fred Khumalo, Chris Abani, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Shadreck Chikoti, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Mona Eltahawy, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Sulaiman Addonia, Chike Frankie Edozien, and Lola Shoneyin, among others.
In 2018, Wanner set up her publishing company, Paivapo, in partnership with her friend and businessperson Nomavuso Vokwana, with a focus on marketing African literature in the Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone African regions.
A prolific journalist, essayist and short-story writer, she has been a contributor to a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including The Observer/The Guardian, Sunday Independent, City Press, Mail & Guardian, La Republica, Open Society, The Sunday Times, African Review, New Statesman, True Love, Marie Claire, Real, Juice, OpenSpace, Wordsetc, Baobab, Shape, Oprah, Elle, Juice, Guernica, Afropolitan and Forbes Africa.Zukiswa Wanner page at Amazon."Women in African Literature: Writing and Representation", South African History Online. Her short story "This is not Au Revoir" is included in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
In November 2023, Wanner released a collection of essays entitled Vignettes of a People in an Apartheid State, reflecting what she witnessed in Palestine, where she went in May 2023 for the Palestine Festival of Literature.
Wanner currently lives in Nairobi, Kenya, having visited for the first time in 2008 and moved there three years later.
In 2025, Wanner was among four South Africans – the others being Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela (grandson of Nelson Mandela), Reaaz Moolla and Dr Fatima Hendricks – sailing with the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSP) international maritime initiative with a mission to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip, who were detained by the Israeli special forces when the humanitarian fleet was intercepted on 1 October. Wanner's book about the experience, titled Flotilla: A Journey of Conscience, was published in 2026.
Awards and honours In April 2014, Wanner was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature.
In July 2014, she was chosen for "Twenty in 20", an initiative to select twenty works of fiction considered as South Africa's best literature since 1994 best stories in South African literature."The Twenty in 20 Final List: the Best Short Stories of South Africa's Democracy", Books Live, Sunday Times, 22 July 2014.
In 2015, at the South African Literary Awards (SALA), she won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award for her novel London Cape Town Joburg (2014).
In 2020, Wanner was awarded the Goethe Medal, a yearly prize given by the Goethe-Institut honouring non-Germans "who have performed outstanding service for the German language and for international cultural relations".
In December 2020, she was chosen by Brittle Paper as "African Literary Personality of the Year".
In February 2024, she returned her Goethe Medal not as a criticism of the Goethe-Institut but rather the German government, citing the government's complicity in the ongoing Palestinian occupation as a callousness to human suffering.
In April 2026, the University of the Free State conferred on Wanner the honorary degree Doctor of Letters for her body of work and life of service.
Bibliography
Novels The Madams, Oshun Books, 2006. Behind Every Successful Man, Kwela Books, 2008. Men of the South, Kwela Books, 2010. London Cape Town Joburg, Kwela Books, 2014. Love Marry Kill, Kwela Books, 2024,
Non-fiction 8115: A Prisoner's Home with Alf Kumalo, Penguin, 2010 Maid in SA: 30 Ways to Leave Your Madam, Jacana, 2010. Hardly Working: A Travel Memoir of Sorts, Black Letter Media, 2018. Vignettes of a People in an Apartheid State, Periferias, 2023 Flotilla: A Journey of Conscience, 2026
Children's books Jama Loves Bananas, Jacana, 2013 Refilwe (an African retelling of "Rapunzel"), Jacana, 2014.
As editor With Rohini Chowdhury, Behind The Shadows. Contemporary Stories from Africa and Asia (2012)
References
External links Official website
Interviews Ambrose Musiyiwa, Zukiswa Wanner: Interview 1, Conversations with Writers, November 2008. Janet van Eeden, , LitNet, 17 August 2010. "Reading 2010: Zukiswa Wanner (South Africa)", Wealth of Ideas, 1 February 2011. "In a Conversation with South African Writer, Zukiswa Wanner", Geosi Reads, 17 February 2011. Ambrose Musiyiwa, Zukiswa Wanner: Interview 2, Conversations with Writers, 19 February 2011. Kiprop Kimutai, "The Jalada Conversations No 4: Zukiswa Wanner", Jalada, a pan-African writers' collective, 30 November 2015.
Martina Bertram, "Zukiswa Wanner: Autocratic governments oppose reading citizens", DW, 29 October 2021. "Zukiswa Wanner: Fiction, power, and a voyage to Gaza", City Press, 1 April 2026, via YouTube.