Gumiguru is the tenth month of the Shona calendar – a month of dryness and heat before the first rains fall and rejuvenate the land. Togara Muzanenhamo’s second collection is a cycle of poems distilling the experiences of a decade into one calendar year, framed through the natural and agricultural landscapes of Zimbabwe. The book stands as both an elegy for the poet’s father and a hymn to the veldt, the farms and villages, and the men and women whose lives are interwoven with the land and the changing seasons.

Prizes

Runner-up for Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry 2015

'Togara Muzanenhamo's second collection, named for the hot and dry tenth month of the Shona calendar, is a harsh but heartfelt tribute to the people and landscapes of the author's native Zimbabwe [...] this poet has a rare gift and should be admired for the risks he takes, which have enabled him to write some unusual, moving and yet understated poems about conflict, love and work'
Times Literary Supplement, 16.10.2015.

Togara Muzanenhamo was born to Zimbabwean parents in Lusaka, Zambia in 1975. He was brought up in Zimbabwe, and then went on to study in The Hague and Paris. He became a journalist in Harare and worked for a film script production company. His work has appeared in magazines in Europe, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and was included in Carcanet's anthology New Poetries in 2002. He has published three collections of poetry, Spirit Brides (2006), Gumiguru (2014), and most recently Virga, a Poetry Book Society Autumn Recommendation for 2021. He has been shortlisted for the Jerwood Alderburgh First Collection Prize and the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.