For : His prolific literary output and excellence
Author’s profile: Zakes Mda, legally Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda (born 1948), he is a novelist, playwright, painter, music composer. South African, resident in the USA. Creative writing professor at Ohio University. Seven novels of literary fiction set in South Africa (have won all the major literary awards in South Africa, and also the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award, and the American Library Association Notable Books in the USA) and one set in the USA (shortlisted for the NAACP Image Award). Most recent book: Our Lady of Benoni, a play published by Wits University Press, Johannesburg, with Introduction by Sarah Roberts. Sometimes There is a Void: Memoirs of an Outsider, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. From Seagull Books, India, and Vivlia Books South Africa came The Sculptors of Mapungubwe (a novel).
Mda is a founding member and currently (as of 2011) serves on the advisory board of African Writers Trust,”a non-profit entity which seeks to coordinate and bring together African writers in the Diaspora and writers on the continent to promote sharing of skills and other resources, and to foster knowledge and learning between the two groups.
He is currently a Patron of the Etisalat Prize for Literature.He studied in South Africa, Lesotho and the United Kingdom. He worked in these countries as well.
