By Own Correspondent| Renowned Zimbabwean author Charles Mungoshi has died.

Born on December 2 1947, Mungoshi died at Chitungwiza hospital this morning.

He had been ill for close to a decade from a neurological condition after he suffered a stroke in April 2010, which nearly paralysed him and pushed him into a two-month long comma.

Reports claimed that the stroke severely affected his nervous system leading to the shrinking of his brain.

Mungoshi was a prolific and multi-award winning novelist , poet , short story writer , actor who was internationally recognized and celebrated.

He published 18 books , which include Waiting for the Rain ( 1975), Ndiko Kupindana Kwemazuva(1975), Walking Still (1997), The Setting Sun And The Rolling World (1980), Stories From A Shona Childhood (1989) and Makunun’unu Maodza Moyo (1970) among a host of other publications.

He twice won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize of Best Book in Africa and was subsequently invited to meet the Queen of England , Queen Elizabeth.One of his poems was curetted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as a permanent display as public art at their new headquarters in Seattle, Washington, in US ,2011.

He was married to actress Jessesi Mungoshi.