Chioniso Tsikisayi continues to shine on the international stage with her ever impressive writing. The writer, poet and singer was recently awarded the Canopus Award for Interstellar Writing in Fiction at the NEXUS 2023 Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya. Chioniso was deeply honoured to be this year’s recipient and she revealed that she initially doubted she’d do well writing about space.
Canopus Award Winner 2023. This is so beautiful, thank you. I’m deeply honoured. Didn’t think I had the capacity to write about space; speculative fiction is a genre that I’ve always found intimidating but here we are!
The Canopus Award’s namesake is the second-brightest star in the night sky. The star Canopus has occupied a central role in the human journey over millennia—from an auspicious herald of planting seasons to a major navigation star for civilizations from the Bedouins of Sinai to the Voyager probe.
Storytelling is essential to communicating and concretizing a vision. A story well told – fictional or non-fictional – pushes us to consider how, where, who and why we advance, stagnate or regress. The Canopus Award invites writers and journalists to join the adventure. – Dr Jemison
The Canopus Award is a key program of 100YSS (100 Year Starship Project), an independent, long-term international initiative to ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar travel, beyond our solar system to another star, exist within the next 100 years. 100YSS led by former astronaut, engineer, physician, and entrepreneur, Dr. Mae Jemison, together with advocates, researchers, industry experts and everyday people from all walks of life is building a global community capable of realizing this audacious journey.
In 2022 Chioniso was a runner up at the 65th Poetry Slam Africa and she was also selected as a finalist for the African Women Playwrights Network’s festival of plays.
