Zimbabwean poet Togara Muzanenhamo was recently awarded 2022 Luschei Prize for African Poetry, by the African Poetry Book Fund. The poet received the honour for his latest collection of poems, titled Virga.
A book already viewed in high regard as an Irish Times Best Poetry Books of the Year and a Poetry Society Autumn Recommendation.
The book is Muzanenhamo’s 4th and not his first poetry collection to get international notice. His debut poetry collection Spirit Brides was shortlisted for the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.
The judge for this year’s Luschei Prize for African Poetry, author Matthew Shenoda, sang Muzanenhamo’s praises in commenting on his choice.
Virga by Togara Muzanenhamo is a collection of poems that reify an age-old truth: the past is not past; and like the elements we experience, the events that once were, linger in the air we occupy now. Borderless in his interests, Muzanenhamo explores moments both intimate and public, known and unknown, staking claim to the expansive notions of what it means to be of or from a place. Muzanenhamo’s poems travel like the weather and show the ways both “here” and “there” are always present. He is a poet with a broad gift for craft and a thinking that resists being placed in any single frame.
The Luschei Prize for African Poetry, funded by literary philanthropist and poet Glenna Luschei and the only pan-African book prize of its kind, promotes African poetry written in English or in translation by recognizing a significant book published each year by an African poet. The winning book earns the author who wrote it a $1,000 (US) in prize money.
