Zimbabwe novelist Chenjerai Hove will be calling Miami home for at least the next two years. As a guest of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Hove will give guest lectures to Miami Dade students, and also interact with the general public by attending a variety of community events. His stay was coordinated by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College.

This is the first time the city of Miami takes part in the International Cities of Refuge Network‘an organization that provides a safe haven to writers who are persecuted in their home countries.

In Zimbabwe, Hove is ranked No. 17 on the government’s Enemies of the State list and his life has also been threatened several times.

Hove is working on a memoir examining how violence came to be such a regular part of Zimbabwe’s political system.

He is best known for his 1989 novel, Bones, which tells the story of a poor farm mother who loses her son in the Zimbabwean war of liberation.

–Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation contributing blogger