Julius Masimba Musodza (born 29 March 1976) is a Zimbabwean author.

Life

Musodza was born at the cusp of the emergence of the new Zimbabwe, the eldest son of a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Lands. The Musodza family are of the Buja people of Mutoko, north east Zimbabwe. Reading was encouraged in the Musodza household. He was educated at Avondale Primary School, Harare and St Mary Magdalene's High School, Nyanga. After school, he trained as a screenwriter, selling his first screenplay to Media For Development Trust in 2002. Barely a month after, as political and socio-economic uncertainty engulfed Zimbabwe, Musodza relocated to the United Kingdom, where he has lived ever since. He lives in the North East England town of Middlesbrough.

Writing

An avid reader as a child, Musodza aspired to be a writer from the time he discovered that it was possible to earn a living from it. Musodza has contributed to StoryTime e-zine, which was founded by Sweden-based Zimbabwean author and publisher, Ivor Hartmann., Jungle Jim, Bookends, Winter Tales and other periodicals. He is also the author of the first definitive science fiction novel in the Shona language, ''MunaHacha Maive Nei? '' Musodza states that he began to write science-fiction in ChiShona when he was 10, when he translated Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for his maternal grandmother. His use of ChiShona challenges the widely-held perception that indigenous languages lack the "sophistication" with which to conceptualise and articulate "complex" ideas such as are found in science-fiction. He has also stated that he is inspired by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Decolonising The Mind. Musodza explores writing science -fiction in ChiShona in an essay, Writing and Publishing 'Complicated Stuff' in an African Language, which appeared in Vector 289, the magazine of the British Fantasy Association He is one of two Zimbabwean writers who have been featured in Geoff Ryman's 100 African Writers of SF In addition to two personal blogs, Musodza, an advocate for Zionism, blogs for The Times of Israel. He has taken part in the Battle for Ideas Festival

Novels and novellas

Short fiction

Acting

Masimba Musodza's professional acting debut was in Edgar Langeveldt's play, No News, which premiered at Theatre-In-The-Park, Harare, in 1997. He also appears in a short film, Vengeance is Mine (2001) by Tawanda Gunda. However, it was not until he settled in Middlesbrough that he began to pursue acting more seriously. He appeared in a short play, To Be Or Not To Be, written by compatriot Dictator Maphosa, as part of the Middlesbrough Council-sponsored Boro Bites short plays (August, 2010). In 2011, he joined the Arc Sketch Group, an extension of the Writers Block North East workshops, which put on themed sketch shows at the Arc Theatre, Stockton-on-Tees until it disbanded in 2012. Since then, Masimba Musodza has been a film and TV extra, appearing in such productions as Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands (Episode 11), where he plays a Vani warrior. He can also be seen in the festival teaser and UK trailer for Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake. He has also appeared in ''Make! Craft Britain'', which was aired on BBC4 on June 9, 2016. His most recent appearance has been in the short film I Need help (Ben Stainsby, 2018), where he plays 'The Wise Man'