After leaving school, he worked with the Forestry Commission, before joining Textbook Sales in Harare.

His first Shona novel was Makunun'unu Maodzamoyo followed by the English short collection Some Kinds of Wounds, which was banned by the colonial regime.

His other Shona novel, Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura, won several awards and his play Inongova Njakenjake showed his versatility as a writer.

His Branching Streams Flow in the Dark won a National Arts Merit Award in 2014 for being the outstanding fiction book published in the year.

He married an actress, Jesesi Mungoshi, who played the title role in the 1993 Zimbabwean film Neria (written by Tsitsi Dangarembga and directed by Godwin Mawuru).