On April 14, 2026, the University of the Free State conferred an honorary Doctor of Letters on Zukiswa Wanner at its Bloemfontein campus graduation ceremony. Recognition, at last, from the academy for a body of work and a life of service that the African literary community has long known to be extraordinary.

In her acceptance remarks, Wanner recalled the moment after her debut novel The Madams came out when she was told, plainly, that writing could not sustain a career. She made herself a promise then, to do whatever it took to make literature a profession that exists. The honorary doctorate is one measure of how far she has come since.

The citation from UFS described her as someone who has shaped the African literary voice and imagination, not only through her novels, but through her interventions in the structures and institutions of literary life on the continent. That dual contribution is what makes this honour feel right.

Her fiction alone would make the case. London Cape Town Joburg won the South African Literary Award. Her books have been translated into multiple languages and read across the world. She was named to the Africa39 list in 2014. In 2020, she won the Goethe Medal, becoming the first African woman to receive it. But the work that sits alongside the writing is, if anything, even more significant. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, when literary festivals shuttered and writers lost their platforms overnight, Wanner founded Afrolit Sans Frontières, a virtual festival that kept African writers in conversation with each other and with global audiences at a moment when that connection was most under threat. Through her press Paivapo Publishing, she has been running the African Translation Project, working to bring contemporary fiction from non-colonial African languages into English, quietly addressing one of publishing’s most stubborn structural failures.

And then there is the past year. In October 2025, Wanner was among a group of activists detained after Israeli naval forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza. She came home and wrote Flotilla: A Journey of Conscience, placing the experience within a wider framework of solidarity and conscience.

The honorary doctorate is a formal recognition of all of this. Congratulations, Dr Wanner.