Neal Hovelmeier

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"An outstandingly gifted writer" | THE SCOTSMAN

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"Dazzles with every word" | LIVERPOOL DAILY POST

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"He has courage and wide sympathies" | THE TIMES

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Neal Hovelmeier is a Zimbabwean author of three published novels under the pseudonym, Ian Holding. Unfeeling (2005), shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, was noted as “one of the season’s best books” by Newsweek and as a “tour de force” by the Independent. Of Beasts and Beings (2010) was described by Michael Ondaatje as “stunning and original, almost Blakean in its vision,” and a “poetic lament” by the Cape Times, while critic Jackie Law heralded What Happened to Us (2018) as being a “powerful, haunting novel.” He was a finalist for both the 2011 Manchester Prize and the 2014 Rolex Initiative. 

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His short writing, essays, criticism and articles have appeared in The Cambridge Literary Review, the Guardian, the Times and the Scotsman. A new play, Outcomes, will be staged in an upcoming production at the Fugard Theatre, Cape Town. As a speaker he has appeared on platforms in London, Edinburgh, New York, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Canberra, Auckland, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Harare.

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He has twice been a Hawthornden Fellow and is currently the Robert G. James Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. He has a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand.

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Some Links

Breaking My Silence – Amplifying Our Voices as ‘Others’

(A Humanitarian Lecture for the Public delivered at Harvard University)

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Fellow’s page at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Harvard University

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Latest author interview at BookBlast

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