Makhosazana Xaba

Makhosazana Xaba

 

Makhosazana Xaba is currently a Research Associate at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). She has published three poetry collections: These hands, Tongues of their Mothers and The Alkalinity of Bottled Water. She edited Like the untouchable wind: an anthology of poems in 2016 which was translated into Spanish. In 2019 she edited Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000 – 2018.

Her poems have been translated into isiXhosa, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Turkish and Setswana. In 2014 her debut collection, Running and Other Stories was a co-winner of the SALA Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award. She is a patron of the Johannesburg Review of Books and holds an MA in Creative Writing (with distinction) from Wits University. Before turning to creative writing, she worked in the NGO sector on women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights; developed training manuals and published extensively.