Zoë Wicomb

Zoë Wicomb
Born
Zoë Charlotte Wicomb

(1948-11-23)23 November 1948
Beeswater, Western Cape, South Africa
Died13 October 2025(2025-10-13) (aged 76)
Glasgow, Scotland
Alma materUniversity of the Western Cape;
Reading University
Occupations
  • Writer
  • academic
Notable workYou Can't Get Lost in Cape Town
AwardsM-Net Prize (2001)
Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (2013)

Zoë Charlotte Wicomb (23 November 1948 – 13 October 2025) was a South African author and academic who lived in the United Kingdom from the 1970s until her death. Her 1987 debut book, You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town – a collection of inter-related short stories, set during the Apartheid era and partly autobiographical – received wide praise, and in 2000 was described by Toni Morrison as "seductive, brilliant and precious".

In 2013, Wicomb was awarded the inaugural Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for her fiction.