Shamiso
Brian Chikwava
Available as Hardback, eBook, Downloadable audio
Zimbabwean girl meets gender-fluid Afro-Brit boy. They can’t stand each other but fall hopelessly in love, before being traumatised into separate paths by their mutual prejudices
LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2026
‘Witty, inventive and sensual’ ABDULRAZAK GURNAH, Nobel Prize Laureate
‘A prodigiously talented and uncompromising writer’ ALI SMITH
‘Original’ Guardian
‘Dazzling’ ANDREW McMILLAN
‘A jewel of a novel’ MENDEZ
When she takes a leap to leave Zimbabwe behind for Brighton, England, young Shamiso must find a new family and a new way of living. It is there she falls for George, sometimes Georgie, whose gender fluidity mirrors Shamiso’s own shapeshifting heart as a woman caught between her desire to belong and profound yearning to find herself.
Quirky, challenging and mischievous, this tender coming-of-age story brilliantly examines selfhood, love and the many shapes family can take. From first moments to final steps, Shamiso is a shimmering, blazing work of modern existence and all its contradictions.
“Witty, inventive and sensual”
Abdulrazak Gurnah, Winner Of The Nobel Prize For Literature
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“A spare, propulsive tale that boldly vaults beyond convention. Shamiso is captivating and utterly original, a vivid reminder of the capacious possibilities of storytelling”
Tope Folarin
“A globe-trotting coming-of-age story … Audaciously told … There is often an admirable audacity in Chikwava’s original prose style – drily funny in its pinpointing of British racism; sensually imagistic in its capturing of juvenile scrapes in Harare”
guardian
”Shamiso is a jewel of a novel that dazzles with ideas on migration, grief, love, time, language and meaning, so economically written that repeat reads are not only rewarded but demanded. It’s a pleasure to read a novel in which such care and consideration is given to each word, each moment”
Mendez, Author Of Rainbow Milk
“I was utterly captivated by Shamiso. With prose lucid as water, Chikwava gives us one of the most unforgettable characters in recent memory. She’s flesh and blood on the page, all I can ask for, and it’s as rare as it is beautiful”
Peter Orner
Brian Chikwava
Brian Chikwava is a London-based writer and author of Harare North, longlisted for the 2010 Orwell Prize for political writing. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies published by Picador, Granta, Weaver Press, Jacana, Umuzi and has been aired on BBC Radios 3, 4 and the World Service. He has held fellowships at Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (South Africa), the University of East Anglia (Charles Pick Fellowship, UK), the Santa Maddalena Foundation (Italy), Maison Dora Maar (France), Civitella Ranieri Foundation (Italy) and Marguerite Yourcenar Villa (France). Brian won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2004 with his short story ‘Seventh Street Alchemy’.
@BrianChikwava