Tinashe Mushakavanhu Named Paris Writer in Residence for 2023

The American University of Paris (AUP), the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Irish Cultural Center) in Paris, and the University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture (PSAC) are pleased to announce that Tinashe Mushakavanhu has been appointed to the fifth Paris Writer’s Residency. We look forward to welcoming him to the French capital to work with students at both our universities and to join our community of writers.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu is a Zimbabwe born writer currently based in Oxford, England. He is a Junior Research Fellow in African & Comparative Literature at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. His short stories and poetry have been anthologised. He is a recipient of the prestigious Miles Morland African Writer’s Scholarship.

He has previously worked in digital media including as inaugural Group Digital Editor at The Financial Gazette, Zimbabwe’s oldest private newspaper, and also participated in a media fellowship at VICE Media among other places. In 2016 he was selected as a CNN Diversity Fellow. For a long time he was a literary columnist for The Standard newspaper. He is a former Executive Secretary of the now defunct Budding Writers Association of Zimbabwe.

His latest nonfiction writing focuses on historical and literary subjects. He is currently working on projects about figures such as Bob Marley, Dambudzo Marechera and Yvonne Vera. Some of his recent books include Some Writers Can Give You Two Heartbeats (2019) and This Man is Dangerous: A Writer in Harare (2023).

The Paris Writer’s Residency invites practitioners in poetry, prose or other genres of writing to explore interdisciplinary writing possibilities and engage with students at the residency’s partner institutions. Mushakavanhu will therefore take part in three key events: a day of interaction with creative writing students at AUP, a reading and workshop with PSAC master’s students, and a public lecture at the Centre Culturel Irlandais.

The Paris Writer’s Residency has previously been held by writer and translator Daniel Hahn (2018), poet and author Sampurna Chatterjee (2019), poet and novelist Sophie Mackintosh (2021), and author and translator E. Tracy Grinnell (2022).