J. Nozipo Maraire

In 2010, she was one of the winners of the British Airways Entrepreneur Face to Face Award for her entry of Ecosurgica, her vision for cutting-edge, affordable health care in Southern Africa. She is the founder of Cutting Edge Neurosurgeon Inc., a web-based start-up.

Her novel Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter, published in 1996, was a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year" and a Boston Globe best-seller and has been published and translated into more than 14 languages. As described by Penelope Lively in a 1996 New York Times review: "A Zimbabwean mother writes to her daughter, Zenzele, a Harvard student, telling the story of her life and thus reflecting the upheavals of her country and indeed her continent over the last 30 years or so." Maraire herself said at the time: "Since I've written the book ... I’ve met a lot of young Africans who’ve told me it's the first time they’ve read a book in which they recognize themselves, the generation of children who made the transition from pre-independence to the struggle for independence and the post-independence era, and the ensuing cynicism that inevitably followed. We remember apartheid, when we weren’t allowed to shop in certain stores. ... We’re lost between the traditional African culture and the modern culture. We don’t know how to incorporate them, and there are no role models. The world is so Western, and we want to retain our core identity."

J. Nozipo Maraire (born 1964) is a Zimbabwean doctor, entrepreneur and writer. She is the author of Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter. The novel was published in 1996, was a New York Times "Notable Book of the Year" and a Boston Globe best-seller. It has been published and translated into more than 14 languages.