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Biography
Yvonne Vera was born on 19 September 1964 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She was educated at York University in Toronto. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled Why Don't You Carve Other Animals, was published in 1992. Her novel Under the Tongue (1996) won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best Book) in 1997. Her story 'Independence Day' was included in The Picador Book of African Stories (2000). Her most recent novel is The Stone Virgins (2002), set in the Matopos and Bulawayo during the period of Gukarahundi.

Between 1997-2003 Vera was Director of the National Gallery in Bulawayo. In 2004 she moved to Toronto, Canada, where she died of meningitis on 7 April 2005. She is survived by her parents, Ericah and Lambert Gwetai, brother Tafadzwa and husband John Jose.

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Bibliography
Why Don't You Carve Other Animals, Baobab Books (Harare), 1992
Nehanda, Baobab Books (Harare), 1993
Without a Name, Baobab Books (Harare), 1994
Under the Tongue, Baobab Books (Harare), 1997
Opening Spaces: an Anthology of Contemporary African Women's Writing (editor), Heinemann (Oxford) and Baobab Books (Harare), 1999
Butterfly Burning, Baobab Books (Harare), Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (US), 2000
The Picador Book of African Stories (contributor), Picador, 2000
The Stone Virgins, Weaver Press (Harare) 2002
Writing Still (contributor), Weaver Press (Harare) 2003

Prizes and Awards
2004 – Swedish PEN Tucholsky Prize for a corpus of work dealing with taboo subjects
2003 – Premio Feronia – Citta di Fiano, Italy (best foreign author category, for Butterfly Burning)
2003 – Runner-up, NOMA Awards
2002 – Initiative LiBeraturpreis, Germany (or German Literature Prize) for the best novel in German translation by a female writer from Asia, Latin America, Africa)
2002 – Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa for The Stone Virgins (best unpublished manuscript)
1999 – Voice of Africa Award Sweden (prize honours Henning Mankell, best body of work)
1997 – Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region, Best Book) for Under the Tongue

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