Daphne Merna Wilson, who wrote as Merna Wilson, was a Zimbabwean journalist, poet and novelist. She became active as a writer in pre-independence Rhodesia.
Life.
Merna Wilson was born in Kwekwe and educated at Mutare High School. She was a correspondent for "African World" from 1965 to 1967, and later worked as a buyer.
The plot of Wilson's first novel "Explosion" (1966) depicted nationalist politics playing out in a mining compound. The novel, typically for white Rhodesians at the time, treated nationalist leaders as cynically power-hungry rather than having popular legitimacy. The book gave a fictional portrayal of Terrence Ranger as 'Professor Granger', a pro-Communist manipulator of liberal opinion outside Rhodesia.
Wilson won the Rhodesian P.E.N. award in 1978. She was on the editorial board of "Two Tone".
References.
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