Booker Prize

Award-winning Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga says winning the Booker Prize would "cause the world to take me more seriously than it had done up until I came on to the Booker scene".

Her latest book, This Mournable Body, is on the Booker Prize shortlist, which was unveiled earlier this month.

"It will make me feel better about myself," she told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

"And I would hope it will come with some financial benefits so that I wouldn't be scraping from hand to mouth all the time as I am most of the time now, which has been exhausting."

Here is the full interview:

BookerCopyright: Booker

Ethiopian-American author Maaza Mengiste has told the BBC of the lengths she went to while writing her Booker Prize-nominated novel The Shadow King - including learning Italian, and binning her first draft after five years of work.

"It was the worst thing I had ever written," she told BBC Focus on Africa radio. "It was completely debilitating, it was so demoralising. I threw that draft away and started at page zero."

In all, the book took Mengiste 10 years to complete.

Writing is, she added, "a process of excavation getting to a point of inspiration. It was sometimes a daily struggle to come to my desk and sit. I have grown with the book... I am absolutely overjoyed to be on this [prize] list."

The novel is set during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.

"For this book I learned Italian to move away from creating stereotypes. I wanted to talk to Italians, descendants of soldiers, and read their archives, letters and diaries on my own," Mengiste said.

"As my language skills developed... my characters were getting more complicated as well."

The Booker Prize, the UK's most prestigious literary award, is open to any novel written in English published in the UK or Ireland by an author of any nationality. Zimbabwe's Tsitsi Dangarembga is also in the running, for This Mournable Body.

The winner will be announced on 17 November.

Read more about the shortlist.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Novels by Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga and Ethiopian-American Maaza Mengiste have both made the six-book shortlist for the prestigious Booker Prize.

Dangarembga's This Mournable Body is a sequel to her 1988 book Nervous Conditions, which has since become a classic, and continues the story of Tambu.

In a tweet, she said she was "overwhelmed and delighted" by the nomination:

Set in the 1930s, Mengiste's The Shadow King focuses on the life of an orphan as Italy's wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's forces threaten to invade Ethiopia.

"I don't know what to say. OH MY GOD!" is what she tweeted in response to the news that she was shortlisted:

Last year, British-Nigerian writer Bernardine Evaristo became the first black woman to win the prize for her book Girl, Woman, Other.

Previous African winners include Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee and Ben Okri.

The other books shortlisted for this year's award are:

• The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
• Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
• Real Life by Brandon Taylor

The winner, who will receive $64,000 (£50,000), will be announced on 17 November.

Any book written in English and published in Britain is eligible for the award.

Read more: Four debuts make shortlist as Hilary Mantel misses out

AFPCopyright: AFP

Award-winning Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga, a nominee for this year's Booker Prize, has been released on bail after her arrest on Friday during an anti-government demonstration.

She and Fadzayi Mahere, spokesperson for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, appeared in court on Saturday on charges of inciting public violence and unnecessary travel during the coronavirus lockdown.

They were arrested in separate incidents near their homes during solo or small demonstrations denouncing alleged human rights abuses and corruption.

Most people had stayed at home on Friday amidst a heavy presence of security forces across cities nationwide.

The two women were in good spirits during their court appearance in the capital, Harare, but complained of squalid and unsanitary conditions in prison.

The government has accused the opposition of aiming to use protests to try and overthrow it, amidst a deepening economic crisis and rising discontent.

Rights group Amnesty International described the arrests as a continuation of the abductions and arbitrary detentions of those who are critical of the government.

Local human rights groups say dozens of people - including opposition supporters, activists and journalists - have been arrested, assaulted and abducted in the last few weeks.

Security forces continue to patrol the capital, Harare.

Last Tuesday, it was announced that Dangarembga’s novel This Mournable Body was among the books longlisted for this year's prestigious Booker Prize.

The list will be whittled down from 13 to a shortlist of six in September.

Watch more about events on Friday in Zimbabwe: