Sue Nyathi: Biography, Age, Career, Books

Sue Nyathi (born 23 June 1978) is a Zimbabwean author and investment analyst. She is best known for writing the novel The Polygamist which was used in the Netflix story The Polygamist which is starred by Sdumo Mtshali as Jonasi Gomora. 

Biography: Sue Nyathi

Full Name: Sukoluhle Nyathi

Place of Birth: Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Date of Birth: 23 June 1978 (Age - 48)

Occupation: Writer, investment analyst

Known For: writing The Polygamist

Nationality: Zimbabwean

Early Life of Sue Nyathi

Sue Nyathi was born as Sukoluhle Nyathi on 23 June 1978 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She was born and raised in a Ndebele conservative city of Bulawayo. Growing up, Sue developed interest in reading books because both her parents were well educated, they had academic text books in the house and her mother also worked in a library. As a result, Sue was well exposed to books from home and at school, which inspired her to become a writer in school.

She started writing novellas for entertainment at the age of 13, and she became popular at school for her books. Sue was a middle child, she had an older brother who was 7 years older than her and a younger brother who was two years younger than her.

Her parents were very strict and didn’t allow her to play outside their home with other kids. Therefore, she often played with her younger brother, however her older brother didn’t consider her a playmate. If her younger brother isn’t available to play, she would create characters from bamboo sticks or cut out people from magazines to have characters to play with. She would read often since she didn’t have many friends while at home.

Education of Sue Nyathi

Sue Nyathi started her basic education at Tennyson Primary School in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, before completing her primary studies at Carmel Primary School. After that, she obtained her secondary school education at Girls College where her writing skills were further developed. Here she wrote her first novel titled “Crazy Over You” inspired by the Sweet Valley High series.

After finishing Cambridge Ordinary Levels, she intended to study journalism, however there was no university or college which offered it as course by the time. Therefore, she chose to pursue financial studies at the National University of Science and Technlogy. She completed a Masters Degree in Finance and Investment at the same institution in 2007.

In 2011 she enrolled at University of Pretoria to pursue real estate studies. She graduated with a Masters in Degree in 2013.

Corporate Career of Sue Nyathi

Sue Nyathi began her career in finance and started by working as a Equity Research Analyst and corporate finance analyst for TN Holdings Limited from 2001 to 2005. While pursuing her masters degree in finance, Sue worked as a teaching assistant at the National University of Science and Technlogy from May 2006 to June 2008. Her duty was to tutor junior students in corporate finance.

In October 2008, she started working for African Development Economic Consultants a Research Associate. Her task was to work on local economic development and revitalization strategies, project feasibility assessments and real estate market analysis. She worked in this company until 2014. In 2015, she became an equity research analyst for Afrifocus Securities involved in the analysis of listed counters in the hospitality sector.

Authorship Career

Sue Nyathi started writing at an early age of 13. Her debut professionally written novel was titled The Polygamist which she wrote and published in 2012. She struggled to find a publisher and ended up self publish the book. After publishing, many productions approached her to make a series out of her novel but nothing materialized. Fortunately, Stainless Glass Production approached her to adapt her novel for television series. In 2026 the production published THE POLYGAMIST as a television series, which became viral across Africa and the world at large.

In 2018 she published a novel the GoldDiggers. The novel was longlisted for the Barry Ronge Fiction Award and the Dublin Literary Award. In 2018 she wrote A Family Affair which was longlisted for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award. She also contributed to Black Tax: Burden or Ubuntu? (2019) and Hair: Unpicking and Weaving stories of Identity (2019).

Personal Life

Sue Nyathi identifies as a feminist. She currently resides in Johannesburg South Africa.