Zodwa Nyoni

Zimbabwean-born poet and playwright (born c. 1988)

Zodwa Nyoni
Born	c. 1988 (age 35–36) Zimbabwe
Nationality	Zimbabwean
Education	Roundhay School; Leeds City College; Leeds Beckett University; University of Leeds
Occupation(s)	Poet and playwright

Zodwa Nyoni (born c. 1988) is a Zimbabwean-born poet and playwright, whose works have been performed at the Leeds Playhouse and the Royal Exchange. She was a finalist in the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Early life and education

Nyoni was born in Zimbabwe around 1988 and she first moved to England in 1992,^[1] when she was aged four, because her father was awarded a scholarship to study for a master's degree in the textiles industry.^[2] After three years, the family returned to Zimbabwe. After a further three years, in 1999, the family returned to Leeds.^[2] At school in Leeds, Nyoni remembers pupils asking her sisters if they had lions and elephants in their garden in Zimbabwe; in Zimbabwe, they were referred to as "the English girls".^[3] Nyoni's father taught at a university in Zimbabwe. She is one of seven children, five of them living in Leeds, with two half-siblings in Botswana.^[2] She was educated at Roundhay School,^[2] Leeds City College, Leeds Beckett University and the University of Leeds.^[4]

Career

Her debut play, Boi Boi is Dead, was first performed at the Leeds Playhouse in 2014. It was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.^[5] To prepare the play, Nyoni was awarded a 2013 Channel 4 Playwrights Award.^[6] Ode to Leeds was first performed at the Leeds Playhouse in 2017 and was reviewed with three stars by The Guardian.^[7] Poetry features throughout the play, as it follows the lives of young spoken-word performers from Leeds.^[8]

Nyoni's 2014 play, Nine Lives, was featured in a 2018 article on the migrant condition in British theatre.^[9] Early career awards include: Award for the Arts 2011 (Leeds Black Awards), Young Black and Asian Writers Award (The Big Issue in the North's Short Story Competition 2011,^[10] and Apprentice Poet-in-Residence at the Ilkley Literature Festival (ILF).^[11] Nyoni's next play was announced as due to be staged at the Royal Exchange in Manchester in 2020.^[12] Experience of life in African diaspora is central to Nyoni's creativity.^[13] A more recent work, debuted at Summerhall in 2019, was A Khoisan Woman - a play about the Hottentot Venus.^[14]

Selected works

Ode To Leeds (Methuen Drama, 2017)^[15]
Nine Lives (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015)^[16]

References

^ Love, Catherine (25 May 2017). "We are Leeds: slam poet Zodwa Nyoni's shout-out to Yorkshire's young voices". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Interview: UK-based Zimbabwean playwright Zodwa Nyoni Showcasing her talents at the Chapeltown Word Junction … Zodwa Nyoni". New Zimbabwe. 19 February 2018. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
^ "An interview with Zodwa Nyoni". Literary Sisters. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
^ "Zodwa Nyoni Alumna". University of Leeds. 18 September 2017.
^ "Finalist 2014-15". Blackburn Prize.
^ "Winners Announced Channel 4 Playwrights Scheme". Channel 4. 13 November 2013.
^ Brennan, Clare (18 June 2017). "Ode to Leeds Review: Poetry in the City". The Guardian.
^ Youngs, Ian (14 June 2017). "Zodwa Nyoni: The writer making young people seen and heard". BBC News.
^ Cornford, Tom (27 April 2018). "Experiencing Nationlessness: Staging the Migrant Condition in Some Recent British Theatre" (PDF). Journal of Contemporary Drama in English. 6 (1): 101–112. doi:10.1515/jcde-2018-0014. S2CID 165679770.
^ "Zodwa Nyoni". Bloomsbury.
^ "Poets in Residence". Ilkley Literature Festival.
^ "Royal Exchange Theatre Autumn Winter 2019 2020 Season Announced". Royal Exchange.
^ Folarin, Inaya (20 December 2017). "Creating to Survive". The Gryphon.
^ "A Khoisan Woman". Summerhall. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
^ Nyoni, Zodwa (2017). Ode to Leeds. Methuen Drama. ISBN 9781350045880.
^ Nyoni, Zodwa (2015). Nine Lives. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781474274401.