Makhosazana Xaba (born 10 July 1957) is a South African poet and short-story writer. She trained as a nurse and has worked a women's health specialist in NGOs, as well as writing on gender and health. She is Associate Professor of Practice in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. ^[1]

Biography

Makhosazana (Khosi) Xaba was born in Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to Glenrose Nomvula Mbatha and Rueben Bejanmin Xaba, the second of five children. ^[2] She has an MA degree in creative writing from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) and is working on a biography of Noni Jabavu.

Xaba won the Deon Hofmeyr Award for Creative Writing (2005) for her unpublished short story "Running". ^[2] Her poems have appeared in publications including Timbila, Sister Namibia, Botsotso, South African Writing, Green Dragon and Echoes, ^[2] and have been collected in These Hands (2005) ^[3] and Tongues of Their Mothers (2008). A book of her short stories, Running and Other Stories, was published in 2013, ^[4] and won the 2014 Nadine Gordimer South African Literary Awards Short Story Award. ^[5]

Xaba is editor of the 2026 anthology Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems, about "the life, experience and visions of African lesbians". ^{[6] [7]}

She is also a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby. ^[8]

With Athambile Masola, Xaba introduced the book Noni Jabavu: A Stranger at Home, a collection of Jabavu's Daily Dispatch columns, published in 2023. ^{[9] [10]}

Works

• These Hands: Poems. Timbila Poetry Project, Elim Hospital, Limpopo Province, 2005. Poetry. ISBN  978-0958464086.
• Tongues of Their Mothers. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008. Poetry. ISBN  978-1869141448.
• Running and Other Stories. Cape Town: Modjaji Books, 2013. Fiction. ISBN  978-1920590161.
• Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems (editor). Harare: MaThoko's Books, 2016. Poetry anthology. ISBN  9781928215479.
• The Alkalinity of Bottled Water. Botsotso Publishing, 2019. Poetry. ISBN  9780994708168

References

• Mzamisa, Palesa (2008). "New voices", Wordsetc, Third Quarter, pp. 31–36.

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