Gweru (The Times-New Ziana) – A Zvishavane-born poet based in Ethiopia has won a global award for being the best poet for the month of December 2019.

In an interview, author and poet Ndaba Sibanda (pictured)said he had won the international Poetry Poetic Pleasure Annual Award in Egypt, an indication his poetry was not only appreciated in Zimbabwe but the world at large.

“The poem that got me this far is entitled “A Dance With Nature and Life” and it’s under the book, “The Dead Must Be Sobbing,” he said.

Sibanda, who was a 2005 National Arts Merit Awards nominee, has written several books, including “Its Time, Snippets, Voice For Peace and Black Communion, Love o Clock and Football of Fools.

“I’m not a man of many words. I express myself through writing and I started writing when I was a young boy back in primary school. I didn’t have much platform to show my talent back then until I was at the Zimbabwe Open University level where I got a chance to write my poems and my lecturer helped me to have them published.”

He said from university, he did not concentrate much on writing after he got a job at Bulawayo City Council.

“I left Bulawayo City Council and went to work in South Africa as a teacher and that’s when I started to write my novels.

“My work was appreciated to an extend that I got the platform to travel to many countries like Afghanistan, United States of America and now I am based in Ethiopia,” Sibanda said.

He advised talented artists to pursue what they are good at as life does not revolve on commercials and sciences only.
The Times-New Ziana