German literary prize, LiBeraturpreis, in 2002 The Stone Virgins (2002), awarded Macmillan Writers' Prize for Africa; extracted in New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby, 2029 At the time of her death Vera was working on a new novel, Obedience, which has never been published. Her other works have been published in Zimbabwe, Canada and several other countries, including translations into Spanish, Italian and Swedish. Vera wrote obsessively, often for 10 hours a day, and described time when she was not writing as "a period of fasting". Her work was passionate and lyrical. She took on themes such as rape, incest and infanticide, and gender inequality in Zimbabwe before and after the country's war of independence with sensitivity and courage. She said: "I would love to be remembered as a writer who had no fear for words and who had an intense love for her nation." In 2004 she was awarded the Swedish PEN Tucholsky Prize "for a corpus of works dealing with taboo subjects". Vera also edited several anthologies by African women writers, including Opening Spaces: an Anthology of Contemporary African Women's Writing (Heinemann African Writers Series, 1999). See also Nehanda Nyakasikana TSAR Publications References Robert Muponde and Mandivavarira Maodzwa-Taruvinga, eds, Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Fiction of Yvonne Vera (Harare: Weaver Press, 2002). Publisher's review Yvonne Vera at postcolonial Literature in English. External links Yvonne Vera archives are held at the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University Libraries, Toronto, Ontario Interview with Financial Gazette, 2002 Jane Bryce, Interview with Yvonne Vera, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 1 August 2000. Published in Sign and Taboo (Harare: Weaver Press, 2002). 1964 births 2005 deaths 20th-century novelists 20th-century short story writers 20th-century Zimbabwean women writers 20th-century Zimbabwean writers 21st-century Zimbabwean women writers 21st-century Zimbabwean writers AIDS-related deaths in Canada Alumni of Mzilikazi High School Deaths from meningitis Neurological disease deaths in Ontario People from Bulawayo Women anthologists Women novelists York University alumni Zimbabwean expatriates in Canada Zimbabwean novelists Zimbabwean short story writers Zimbabwean women short story writers