Makhosazana Xaba

Makhosazana Xaba
Born1957 (age 67–68)
Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Alma materUniversity of the Witwatersrand
Occupation(s)Poet and short-story writer
AwardsSouth African Literary Awards Short Story Award

Makhosazana Xaba (born 10 July 1957) is a South African poet and short-story writer. She trained as a nurse and has worked a women's health specialist in NGOs, as well as writing on gender and health. She is Associate Professor of Practice in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg.[1]

Biography

Makhosazana (Khosi) Xaba was born in Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to Glenrose Nomvula Mbatha and Rueben Bejanmin Xaba, the second of five children.[2] She has an MA degree in creative writing from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) and is working on a biography of Noni Jabavu.

Xaba won the Deon Hofmeyr Award for Creative Writing (2005) for her unpublished short story "Running".[2] Her poems have appeared in publications including Timbila, Sister Namibia, Botsotso, South African Writing, Green Dragon and Echoes,[2] and have been collected in These Hands (2005)[3] and Tongues of Their Mothers (2008). A book of her short stories, Running and Other Stories, was published in 2013,[4] and won the 2014 Nadine Gordimer South African Literary Awards Short Story Award.[5]

Xaba is editor of the 2026 anthology Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems, about "the life, experience and visions of African lesbians".[6][7]

She is also a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[8]

With Athambile Masola, Xaba introduced the book Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home, a collection of Jabavu's Daily Dispatch columns, published in 2023.[9][10]

Works

  • These Hands: Poems. Timbila Poetry Project, Elim Hospital, Limpopo Province, 2005. Poetry. ISBN 978-0958464086.
  • Tongues of Their Mothers. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008. Poetry. ISBN 978-1869141448.
  • Running and Other Stories. Cape Town: Modjaji Books, 2013. Fiction. ISBN 978-1920590161.
  • Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems (editor). Harare: MaThoko's Books, 2016. Poetry anthology. ISBN 9781928215479.
  • The Alkalinity of Bottled Water. Botsotso Publishing, 2019. Poetry. ISBN 9780994708168

References

  1. ^ "Meet the team - Future Professors Programme - FPP Operational Team". Future Professors Programme. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
  2. ^ a b c "A Brief Biography of Makhosazana Xaba", Art for Humanity, 31 August 2011.
  3. ^ Molema, Leloba, "Review", Archived 6 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Feminist Africa 5, pp. 153–157, African Gender Institute.
  4. ^ "L'AFRIQUE ECRITE AU FEMININ | Les auteures anglophones". aflit.arts.uwa.edu.au. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  5. ^ Running and Other Stories at African Books Collective.
  6. ^ Xaba, Makhosazana (2016). Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems. MaThoko's Books. ISBN 9781928215479 – via Google Books.
  7. ^ "Like the untouchable wind: An anthology of poems" at GALA.
  8. ^ Magwood, Michele (5 July 2019). "'New Daughters of Africa' Is a Powerful Collection of Writing by Women from the Continent". Wanted.
  9. ^ "Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home". NB Publishers. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  10. ^ Masola, Athambile (22 March 2023). "Noni Jabavu was a pioneering South African writer - a new book shows how relevant she still is". The Conversation. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  • Mzamisa, Palesa (2008). "New voices", Wordsetc, Third Quarter, pp. 31–36.


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