Zodwa Nyoni (born c. 1988) is a Zimbabwean-born poet and playwright, whose works have been performed at the

Leeds Playhouse Leeds Playhouse is a theatre in the city centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire. Having originally opened in 1970 in a different location in Leeds, it reopened as West Yorkshire Playhouse, on Quarry Hill, in March 1990. After a refurbishment in 2018-20 ...

and the Royal Exchange. She was a finalist in the

Susan Smith Blackburn Prize The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize established in 1978, is the largest and oldest playwriting prize for women+ writing for English-speaking theatre. Named for Susan Smith Blackburn (1935–1977), alumna of Smith College, who died of breast cancer. W ...

Early life and education

Nyoni was born in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

around 1988 and she first moved to England in 1992, when she was aged four, because her father was awarded a scholarship to study for a master's degree in the textiles industry. After three years, the family returned to Zimbabwe. After a further three years, in 1999, the family returned to

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

. 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". 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. She was educated at

Roundhay School Roundhay is a large suburb in north-east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Roundhay had a population of 22,546 in 2011. It sits in the Roundhay ward of Leeds City Council and Leeds North East parliamentary constituency. History Etymology Round ...

Leeds City College Leeds City College is the largest further education establishment in the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England with around 26,000 students, 2,300 staff, with an annual turnover of £78 million.

Leeds Beckett University Leeds Beckett University (LBU), formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and before that as Leeds Polytechnic, is a public university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has campuses in the city centre and Headingley. The univ ...

and the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

Career

Her debut play, ''Boi Boi is Dead'', was first performed at the

in 2014. It was a finalist for the

. To prepare the play, Nyoni was awarded a 2013

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

Playwrights Award. ''Ode to Leeds'' was first performed at the Leeds Playhouse in 2017 and was reviewed with three stars by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. Poetry features throughout the play, as it follows the lives of young spoken-word performers from Leeds. Nyoni's 2014 play, ''Nine Lives'', was featured in a 2018 article on the migrant condition in British theatre. 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, and Apprentice Poet-in-Residence at the

Ilkley Literature Festival The Ilkley Literature Festival is a literature festival held annually in Ilkley, Yorkshire. Inaugurated in 1973 by the poet W. H. Auden and until 1988 held every two years, the festival is the oldest and largest of its type in the north of Engl ...

(ILF). Nyoni's next play was announced as due to be staged at the Royal Exchange in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

in 2020. Experience of life in African diaspora is central to Nyoni's creativity. A more recent work, debuted at Summerhall in 2019, was ''A Khoisan Woman'' - a play about the

Hottentot Venus Sarah Baartman (; 1789– 29 December 1815), also spelt Sara, sometimes in the diminutive form Saartje (), or Saartjie, and Bartman, Bartmann, was a Khoikhoi woman who was exhibited as a freak show attraction in 19th-century Europe under the n ...

Selected works

* ''Ode To Leeds'' (Methuen Drama, 2017) * ''Nine Lives'' (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015)

References

External links

"Zodwa Nyoni"
''Sable LitMag'', 19 January 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nyoni, Zodwa 21st-century dramatists and playwrights 21st-century poets 21st-century Zimbabwean women writers 21st-century Zimbabwean writers Alumni of Leeds Beckett University Alumni of the University of Leeds Living people Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom People educated at Roundhay School Women dramatists and playwrights Year of birth missing (living people) Zimbabwean dramatists and playwrights Zimbabwean emigrants to the United Kingdom Zimbabwean poets Zimbabwean women poets