About me

Bio

©Reuters

Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University, and the University of Zimbabwe. Her short fiction and essays have been published in eight countries. She lives with her son Kush in Geneva, where she works as counsel in an international organisation that provides legal aid on international trade law to developing countries. Her story collection, An Elegy for Easterly is published by Faber in April 2009. She is currently completing The Book of Memory, her first novel. Both books will also be published in Finland, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

 

Proust Questionnaire

Describe yourself in three words.
Optimistic, energetic and opinionated.

Why do you write?
Because the worlds in my head are as real to me as the world of my body, because I love to read, because I want to move people and make them laugh, because I want to take people out of themselves, if only for the length of the shortest story.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A book I cannot put down; a good time with the people I love; reading Where the Wild Things Are to Kush; any time spent doing anything at all with my best friend.

What is your greatest fear?
That Zimbabwe may never recover.

What is your greatest regret?
That my son will never know the Zimbabwe that I loved and that he may never know what a nyaudzosingwi is, or complete the saying; dindingwe rinoda richakweva ...

Who are your heroes?
My father and my mother. My paternal grandmother, VaNdada.

Which historical figures do you most identify with?
James Chuma and Abdullah Susi; Sir Walter Scott.

Which living persons do you most admire?
Jenni Williams. MDC polling agents.

Which living persons do you most despise?
All men who abuse children or hit women.  The rebel leaders Laurent Nkunda and Joseph Kony.

What do you most admire in a man?
A good sense of humour, especially the ability to laugh at himself. Kindness, courage and integrity.

What do you most admire in a woman?
A good sense of humour, especially the ability to laugh at herself. Kindness, integrity and elegance.

What do you like the least about yourself?
My inability to let stupid arguments go unanswered. The obstinate roundness of my face.

Who is your favourite hero of fiction.
T.S. Garp from The World According to Garp.  Macon Dead from Song of Solomon. Yossarian from Catch-22. Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice.

Which talent would you most like to have?
The ability to sing on the wing like a bird in the spring.

When and where were you happiest?
The two years I spent doing my A-levels at St Ignatius College studying my favourite subjects Shona, History and English and fighting against authority and battling with Father Berridge and reading the books that later became my touchstones and becoming a Buddhist for three months and getting my trainers wet in the early morning dew as I ran up the kopje and down again and playing John Denver on my guitar at the school concert and falling in love for the first time.

What is the most bizarre thing to have happened to you?
Being bitten on the thumb by a circus monkey at the Angwa Street parking lot in 1993.

Seriously?
Yes, seriously. I still have the scar to prove it.