Makhosazana Xaba
Main profile
Makhosazana Xaba is an anthologist, essayist, short story writer and poet. She has three collections of poetry, these hands (2005 and 2017) Tongues of their Mothers (2008) and The Alkalinity of Bottled Water (Forthcoming in 2019 with Botsotso Publishers) and is an editor of Like the untouchable wind: an anthology of poems (2016). Also forthcoming in 2019 with UKZN Press is an anthology she compiled and edited Our Word, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000 – 2015.
Her debut short story collection Running and other stories (2013) was a joint winner of the 2014 South African Literary Awards’ (SALA), Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award. She co-edited Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction (2013), Queer Africa: New Stories (2017) and Queer Africa: Selected Stories (2018) with Karen Martin. With Crystal Biruk she co-edited Proudly Malawian: Life Stories from Lesbian and Gender-nonconforming Individuals (2016).
While at WiSER she continues her long-term project, writing a biography of Helen Nontando Jabavu (Noni), the author of Drawn in Colour: African Contrasts (1960) and The Ochre People: Scenes from a South African Life (1963)