The year-round temperate climate of the Highveld has combined with the natural inclinations of the white population to produce an outdoor society. Tennis—whether on farms or at urban clubs—and bowling have many more followers than any ballet group. Happily for the cause of reconciliation, the first sport heroes after freedom were the members of the all-white team that was awarded the first gold medal for women's field hockey in Olympic history at Moscow in 1980. The most famous of Rhodesian-bred writers, Doris Lessing, settled in England in 1949. In some contrast, the nationalist fight prompted a renaissance of Shona culture.

A forerunner of this renaissance (and a victim of the liberation fight) was Herbert Chitepo, both as abstract painter and epic poet. Stanlake Samkange's novels reconstruct the Shona and Ndebele world of the 1890s, while those of the much younger Charles Mungoshi explore the clash of Shona and Western cultures in both the Shona and English languages. Folk traditions have survived in dance and pottery. The revival of sculpture has drawn on tribal religion and totems to produce some remarkable works, particularly those of Takawira and the Tengenenge school of craftsmen who sculpt in hard serpentine.