Zimbabwe’s Dangarembga First Black Woman To Receive German Peace Prize

By Norman Dotson Published: October 28, 2021

Zimbabwe’s Dangarembga First Black Woman To Receive German Peace Prize

Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembwa poses for a photograph, at her home in Harare, Tuesday, June 22, 2021. The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which is endowed with 25,000 euros ($29,700), has been awarded since 1950. Dangarembga will receive it in Frankfurt on Oct. 24. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

In Summary

Author Tsitsi Dangarembga becomes the first Black woman to receive a Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She calls for a shift to end violence fueled by a racial hierarchy globally.

Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga has made history becoming the first Black woman to win a Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.

According to an article on The Washington Post, Dangarembga is the first Black woman to win a Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which is endowed with 25,000 euros ($29,100).

The article spoke on her acceptance speech at the St. Paul church in Frankfort, Germany. Dangarembga spoke about Zimbabwe’s colonial past and forms of violence white colonialists inflicted on its Black citizens in the 19th and 20th centuries.

“These kinds of violence are structured into the global order that we live in and have their root in the structures of Western empire that began to be formed over half a millennium ago,” she said, according to The Washington Post.

Some of Dangarembg’s most well-known works include her bestselling novel Nervous Conditions and its sequel, This Mournable Body.

Along with the Peace Prize, Dangarembga has also been awarded the PEN Pinter Prize and the PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression this year.