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Sindisiwe Sibanda, Sunday News Reporter
RENOWNED award winning writer Dr Charles Mungoshi has died.
He was was 71. In a statement yesterday, the family said Dr Mungoshi has been ill for the past 10 years.
“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing away of our beloved father. He had been ill for 10 years from a neurological condition to which he succumbed this morning (yesterday) at Parirenyatwa Hospital.
“We are honoured to have Dr Mungoshi, a quiet, deeply loving and caring husband to Jesesi, father to Farai, Graham, Nyasha, Charles and Tsitsi and a grandfather to seven young and loving grandchildren.”
Dr Mungoshi was a prolific and multi-award winning novelist, poet, and short story writer, actor who was internationally recognised and celebrated.
He published 18 books, which include Waiting for the Rain ( 1975), Ndiko Kupindana Kwemazuva (1975), Makunun’unu Maodza Moyo (1970), The Milkman Doesn’t Only Deliver Milk (1981), Inongova Njake Njake (1980), Coming of the Dry Season (1972) and Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness (2013).
Among other accolades, Dr Mungoshi twice won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize of Best Book in Africa and was subsequently invited to meet the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth. One of his poems was curetted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as a permanent display as public art at their new headquarters in Seattle, Washington, in US, 2011.
In 2003 he was conferred an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Zimbabwe, after winning multiple awards which include Zimbabwe’s 75 best books where he appeared in the top five lists in both Shona and English categories.
Soon after news of his death, people of all walks of life went to social media to express their condolences to the family. Many acknowled that Dr Mungoshi was a rare breed of writers.
@macindie1
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu