Togara Muzanenhamo was born in Lusaka, Zambia, to Zimbabwean parents. He was brought up in Zimbabwe on his family’s farm. He went on to study Business Administration in France and The Netherlands. After his studies he returned to Zimbabwe and worked as a journalist, then moved to an organisation dedicated to developing African screenplays. Later Muzanenhamo went to England to pursue an MA in creative writing. He now divides his time between writing and farming.
Togara Muzanenhamo’s poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies in Europe, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Togara is a poet scarcely known in his home country, Zimbabwe. His first collection, Spirit Brides, was published by Carcanet Press in the UK in 2006, and his work has appeared amongst others in Carapace, PN Review, The Zimbabwean Review, Revue Noire, BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service.
His poetry is beautifully observed, his imagery finely perceptive, his language and its rhythms hauntingly simple as he pulls back the blinds from a world that is known but too often hidden from view. He does so with an empathy and gentleness that speaks of compassion and yet he cuts and shapes his poems with the precision of a surgeon. Various themes echo through his poetry: the magic and mystery of childhood; departure, loss and death; and love, understated, and in all its many and complex connectivities.
