Yvonne Vera (September 19, 1964 – April 7, 2005) was an award-winning Zimbabwean author.
Born in Bulawayo, Vera grew up a modest life, worked as a cotton-picker at eight and attended Mzilikazi High School.
From being a literature teacher at Njube High School, Vera moved to Canada in 1987 where she furthered her education, completing an undergraduate, Masters and PhD before teaching literature at the same institution.
It was in Canada that she published her first book of short stories, titled Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals
In the years to follow he published the following books.
- Nehanda (1993), short-listed for Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
- Without a Name (1994), awarded Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Africa and Zimbabwe Publishers’ Literary Award
- Under the Tongue (1997)
- Butterfly Burning (2000), awarded a German literary prize, LiBeraturpreis, in 2002
- The Stone Virgins (2002), awarded Macmillan Writers’ Prize for Africa.
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In 1997, she moved to Zimbabwe and headed the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo before moving back to Canada in 2004 where she died in 2007.
Vera was an inspiration to women and girls in Zimbabwe and her novels are known for their poetic prose, and their strong women characters, and are firmly rooted in Zimbabwe’s difficult past.
For these reasons, she has been widely studied and appreciated by those studying postcolonial African literature.
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