Several authors on Monday went to the home of exiled acclaimed Zimbabwean author and critic of President Robert Mugabe, Chenjerai Hove, who died in Norway on Sunday.
Fellow writer and friend, Chirikure Chirikure, described Hove’s death as a great loss adding that most worrying is the fact that he died thousands of miles away from his family, relatives and friends.
The Zimbabwe Writers Union secretary general, writer, University of Zimbabwe lecturer and a student of the late Hove, said the late novelist’s literature had a great impact and will continue to do so even after his death.
Another writer, David Mungoshi, described the late Hove as a humorous person, noting that he left some unpublished works that they would be published in the near future.
Irene Staunton, who was once a publisher of Baobab Books which published Bones, said it was sad that Hove died so young and thousands of kilometers away from home.
The award winning 59 year-old Hove, who went into exile in 2001, succumbed to kidney failure on Sunday in Norway where he was an international Writers Project Fellow at Brown University Watson Institute for International Studies.
Hove once worked for Moto Magazine, Inter Press Services, Zimbabwe Publishing House and the University of Zimbabwe as a writer in residence.
Some of his novels include, Bones, published in 1988, which focuses on the differences between colonialism and independence from British rule. The other novel is Masimba Avanhu or Is This the People's Power? This novel got him noticed by the ruling elite as he questioned some political processes in the country.
Hove received the Zimbabwe Literary Award in 1987, the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 1989 and a German-Africa Award for freedom of expression in 2001.
He leaves behind a wife and six children and the family is making arrangements to bring his body back home for burial.
