ZOË WICOMB
November 23, 1948-October 13, 2025
The New Press is deeply saddened to note the passing of renowned writer and academic Zoë Wicomb, one of the most significant authors of late-apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.
Born in South Africa, Wicomb grew up in Namaqualand and later emigrated to the United Kingdom. Her fiction often examined the racial politics and history of South Africa and was lauded by writers like Toni Morrison and J.M. Coetzee. The New Press is proud to have published four works of fiction by Wicomb: the novel Still Life (November 2020), which the New York Times named a top historical fiction pick of the year, the short story collection The One That Got Away (April 2009), and the novels Playing in the Light (June 2006) and October (March 2014).
Wicomb was an inaugural winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize. The Prize noted, “Zoë Wicomb’s subtle, lively language and beautifully crafted narratives explore the complex entanglements of home, and the continuing challenges of being in the world.”
Read obituaries in The New York Times and The Guardian. Read a remembrance from the University of the Western Cape and in Brittle Paper, Africa Is A Country, and The Conversation.
