List of Famous people born in Zimbabwe
Charlene, Princess of Monaco
Charlene is the Princess of Monaco and a former Olympic swimmer. Her husband, Albert II, is the reigning Prince of Monaco and head of the Princely House of Grimaldi.
Chelsy Davy
Chelsy Yvonne Davy is a Zimbabwean businesswoman who is the owner and founder of AYA and Aya Africa Travel.
Gary Ballance
Gary Ballance is a Zimbabwean-born-British cricketer. He is a left-handed batsman and a leg break bowler, who currently plays for Yorkshire County Cricket Club and England. He was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. Ballance is also known to have frequently used racial slurs.
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) from 1975 to 1980 and led its successor political party, the ZANU – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), from 1980 to 2017. Ideologically an African nationalist, during the 1970s and 1980s he identified as a Marxist–Leninist, and as a socialist after the 1990s.
Grace Mugabe
Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe is an entrepreneur, politician and the widow of the late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. She served as the First Lady of Zimbabwe from 1996 until her husband's resignation in November 2017, a week after he was ousted from power. Starting as a secretary to President Mugabe, she rose in the ranks of the ruling ZANU–PF party to become the head of its Women's League and a key figure in the Generation 40 faction. At the same time, she gained a reputation for privilege and extravagance during a period of economic turmoil in the country. She was expelled from the party, with other G40 members, during the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état.
Tsitsi Dangarembga
Tsitsi Dangarembga is a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions (1988), which was the first to be published in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe, was named by the BBC in 2018 as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world. In 2020, her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Canaan Banana
Canaan Sodindo Banana was a Zimbabwean Methodist minister, theologian, and politician who served as the first President of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987. He was Zimbabwe's first head of state after the Lancaster House Agreement that led to the country’s independence. In 1987, he stepped down as President and was succeeded by Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, who became the country's executive president. In 1997, Banana was accused of being a homosexual, and after a highly publicised trial, was convicted of 11 counts of sodomy and "unnatural acts", serving six months in prison.
Emmerson Mnangagwa
Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa is a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who has served as President of Zimbabwe since 24 November 2017. A member of ZANU–PF and a longtime ally of former President Robert Mugabe, he held a series of cabinet portfolios and was Mugabe's Vice President until November 2017, when he was dismissed before coming to power in a coup d'état. He secured his first full term as president in the disputed 2018 general election.
Ian Douglas Smith
Ian Douglas Smith was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979. He was the country's first premier not born abroad, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965, following prolonged dispute over the terms. He remained Prime Minister for almost all of the 14 years of international isolation that followed, and oversaw Rhodesia's security forces during most of the Bush War, which pitted the unrecognised administration against communist-backed black nationalist guerrilla groups. Smith, who has been described as personifying white Rhodesia, remains a highly controversial figure—supporters portray him as a man of integrity and vision "who understood the uncomfortable truths of Africa," while his opponents consider him "an unrepentant racist."
Bona Mugabe
Nyepudzayi Bona Mugabe is a Zimbabwean businesswoman. She is the only daughter of former and late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Grace Mugabe, who also have two sons. She shares a name with Robert Mugabe's mother.