Charles Mungoshi was born in 1947 in the Chivhu area of Zimbabwe. He was a novelist, playwright, and founding figure of modern Zimbabwean literature.
After graduating from the University of Zimbabwe, Mungoshi worked at the
Literature Bureau as an editor and at Zimbabwe Publishing House until 1986. He returned to university as a Writer in Residence and continued to work as a freelance writer, scriptwriter and editor.
Mungoshi was twice awarded the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa) in 1988 and 1998 for his short story collections,
The Setting Sun and the Rolling World and
Walking Still.
Two of his novels,
Waiting for the Rain (1975) and
Ndiko kupindana kwa mazuva (1975) received International PEN awards.
Mungoshi died in 2019.