BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AWARD WINNING AUTHOR FROM ZIMBABWE YVONNE VERA : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                    BLACK                 SOCIAL                 HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                Yvonne Vera September 19, 1964 - April 7, 2005 was an award-winning author from Zimbabwe. Her novels are known for their poetic prose, difficult subject-matter, 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.

Life

Vera was born in Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia, to her mother Ericah Gwetai. At the age of eight, she worked as a cotton-picker near Chegutu. She attended Mzilikazi High School and then taught English literature at Njube High School, both in Bulawayo. In 1987 she travelled to Canada and she married John Jose, a Canadian whom she had met while he was teaching at Njube. At York University, Toronto, she completed an undergraduate degree, a master's and a PhD, and taught literature.
In 1995, Vera returned to Zimbabwe and in 1997 became director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulaway, a gallery that showcases local talent ranging from that of professional artists to school children. In 2004 she went back to Canada, where she died on April 7, 2005, of AIDS-related meningitis.



Yvonne Vera (born 1964), one of Africa's most esteemed writers, has been showered with awards and her work has landed on feminist and African studies curriculum at universities across the world. Vera was born and raised against the backdrop of faltering colonialism and vicious guerilla warfare in 1970's Rhodesia, Southern Africa. Her childhood was spent watching men go off to war, many never to return, and watching women struggle to survive in a society where being a woman meant being a second-class citizen at best, ignored and abused at worst. Vera was just 15 when the guerilla armies triumphed over the colonialists, and Zimbabwe, declaring its independence, was born.
As Vera finished her secondary studies, Zimbabwe was fitfully learning how to be a post-colonial nation. Though the country's white oppressors had been shaken off and black men were enjoying new freedoms, black women were learning that freedom would not yet.