There is the `std.unicode` module[1] which provides standard unicode functions (encode, decode, length, iteration over code points), so I don't think it's fair to say that the language's library lacks strings in any real sense.

I will re-emphasize that I've not used it, so I cannot speak for its quality.

[1]: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/blob/master/lib/std/unicode.z...