Zukiswa Wanner is the author of the novels The Madams (Oshun, 2006), Behind Every Successful Man (Kwela, 2008), Men of the South (Kwela, 2010), and London Cape Town Joburg (Kwela, 2014). She has also written two works of nonfiction, Maid in SA (Jacana, 2013) and Hardly Working (Black Letter Media, 2018). She has authored four children’s books, Jama Loves Bananas (Jacana, 2011), Refilwe (Jacana, 2013), The Seven Continents: Africa (Scholastic, 2019) and Black Pimpernel: Nelson Mandela on the Run (Pushkin Press, 2022). Wanner is the creator and curator of the arts initiative Artistic Encounters. In 2020, she founded the first pandemic literary festival, Afrolit Sans Frontieres, which morphed to Virtually Yours. That same year, she became the first African woman to be awarded the Goethe Medal, a German state award, for her contribution to cultural exchange; was selected among the pan-Africanist New African magazine’s 100 Most Influential Africans, and was cited by literary blog Brittle Paper as Literary Person of the Year 2020.
