Tinashe Mushakavanhu

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Tinashe Mushakavanhu was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. He is a writer, editor and scholar based at St Anne's College, University of Oxford. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research (WiSER) at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.[1] He holds a PhD in English from University of Kent.[2]

Background[edit]

Mushakavanhu was born and grew up in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and when he was 16 years old his family moved to the city of Gweru, where he attended Fletcher High School, a once historically prominent school in Zimbabwe.

Education[edit]

He joined Midlands State University in 2002, two years after it was established, and later graduated with a first-class honours degree in English & Communication. Afterwards, he moved to Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he graduated with an MA in Creative Writing. Subsequently, he went on to receive a PhD in English from the University of Kent.[3] He has held prestigious fellowships in Edinburgh, Johannesburg and New York and has given talks and lectures at various universities and colleges.[4][5]

Writing[edit]

As a university student, Mushakavanhu was an active member of the now defunct Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe (BWAZ), where he was elected as the National Secretary of its executive committee. He has participated in a number of writing programmes, including the British Council's Crossing Borders Creative Writing project between 2004 and 2005, a mentoring initiative that paired young African writers with experienced British writers.[6] He was also a writer-in-residence at Rhodes University. He has written about how, after finishing high school, he determined to learn how books were produced, and so pursued a job at Weaver Press, eventually being hired by publisher Irene Staunton as an assistant.[7]

Media[edit]

Inspired by his late uncle, Lovemore Dexter Mushaka, the young Mushakavanhu was always drawn to journalism from a young age.[8][9] He was a columnist for The Standard before he was hired to be inaugural Online Editor at The Financial Gazette, Zimbabwe's oldest private newspaper.[10] He then moved to New York, where he joined the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism as a Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism Fellow.[11] Mushakavanhu was the first winner of the KNIGHT-VICE Innovator's Fund that had been initiated by Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith.[12] He was a CNN Diversity Fellow at the 2016 Online News Association (ONA) in Denver, Colorado.[13] Together with Nontsikelelo Mutiti they co-founded Black Chalk & Co, a boutique media and research studio,[14] and their work included synchronised events, publications and exhibitions.[15]

Awards[edit]

Publications[edit]

  • Reincarnating Marechera: Notes on a Speculative Archive (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2020)[18]
  • Some Writers Can Give You Two Heart Beats, with Nontsikelelo Mutiti (Black Chalk & Co, 2019)[19]
  • Visa Stories: Experiences Between Law & Migration, with F. Menozzi, B. Kemal (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013)[20]
  • State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry, with David Nettleingham (The Conversation Paperpress, 2009)[21]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "People at WISER | Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research". wiser.wits.ac.za. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  2. ^ "Good to meet you: Tinashe Mushakavanhu". the Guardian. 9 January 2010. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  3. ^ Mushakavanhu, Tinashe (13 July 2021). "Birth of Zimbabwe's literature in the 'Garden of England'". Medium. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  4. ^ "Inventing the Past". The Cooper Union. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  5. ^ "Tinashe Mushakavanhu | Duke Forum for Scholars and Publics". Duke FSP. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  6. ^ "Home - Crossing Borders". www.transculturalwriting.com. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  7. ^ Mushakavanhu, Tinashe (11 January 2017). "In Pursuit of Publishing". medium.com. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  8. ^ Mushakavanhu, Tinashe. "Lovemore Dexter Mushaka – Voices of Africa". Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  9. ^ "Top of the Blogs 2015 (1) - Media Programme Sub-Saharan Africa Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V." Media Programme Sub-Saharan Africa. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  10. ^ Mushakavanhu, Tinashe (25 April 2015). "Full disclosure". Medium. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  11. ^ "Tow-Knight Announces a Record 21 New Fellows". MediaShift. 3 March 2015. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  12. ^ "Knight-VICE Innovators Fund winner: In Africa, 'We need our own BuzzFeed, our own Huffington Post...'". Poynter. 13 August 2015. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  13. ^ "Diversity Fellows". Online News Association. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  14. ^ "Black Chalk & Co. Is Building An Archive Of Zimbabwe's Stories". NEW INC. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  15. ^ "Telling the Story of Zimbabwe's Subversive Creatives". Literary Hub. 4 December 2019. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  16. ^ "23 Writers Shortlisted for the 2021 Morland Scholarship for African Writing". Brittle Paper. 20 October 2021. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  17. ^ Armstrong, Annie (25 April 2019). "Open Society Foundations Name Winners of 2019 Soros Arts Fellowships". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  18. ^ Mushakavanhu, Tinashe (2020). Reincarnating Marechera: Notes on a Speculative Archive. Ugly Duckling Presse. ISBN 978-1-946433-60-2.
  19. ^ Mushakavanhu, Tinashe; Mutiti, Nontsikelelo (2019). Some Writers Can Give You Two Heartbeats. Black Chalk & Company. ISBN 978-0-7974-9573-9.
  20. ^ Menozzi, Filippo; Kemal, Bahriye; Mushakavanhu, Tinashe (29 July 2013). Visa Stories: Experiences between Law and Migration. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-5118-3.
  21. ^ Mushakavanhu, Tinashe; Nettleingham, David (2009). State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry. Conversation Paperpress. ISBN 978-0-9563137-0-6.
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