PROMINENT poet, published author and former freedom fighter Freedom Nyamubaya has died. She was 57.
BY ARTS CORRESPONDENT
Nyamubaya died at Chinhoyi Provincial Hospital on Sunday afternoon after being admitted the same day complaining of hypertension.
Family spokesperson Julias Nyamubaya said Nyamubaya will be buried on Saturday at 1400hrs at a place to be announced as other family members were still to be advised.
Nyamubaya is survived by son Naishe.
Nyamubaya was known for her fearless stance on issues that affect women especially ex-combatants. She was open that most female ex-combatants were abused during the liberation struggle and should be compensated.
Among her works the poem For Suzana is irresistible for its gentle narration of ordeals of a woman who sacrifices her life to train and carry arms for freedom before suffering humiliation through rape when her body becomes a “church for high-ranking monks to relieve their stress”.
Nyamubaya was also known as a rural development activist, farmer and dancer. She cut short her secondary school education in 1975 when she left to join the Zimbabwe liberation movement in Mozambique where she achieved the rank of female field operation commander. She was later elected secretary for education at the first Zanu PF Women’s League conference in 1979.
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She founded MOTSRUD, an NGO that provides agro-services to rural farmers, after independence.
Her first poetry anthology, On the Road Again was published by Zimbabwe Publishing House in 1985, followed by Dusk of Dawn published by College Press in 1995.
Her short story That Special Place appeared in Writing Still, an anthology published by Weaver Press in 2003.
