Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer. Her debut short story collection, Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book award, and she has published one novel, The Book of Memory . Her new collection of short stories, Rotten Row, is published by Faber. In this interview, the prize-winning Zimbabwean author speaks on tackling everyone from Mugabe to aid workers – through her homeland’s sense of humour.
Your short stories are linked by the theme of crime and justice. Why did you choose that as your focus?
In 2010, I read two collections of short stories, Crime and Guilt , by Ferdinand von Schirach, who is a lawyer in Germany and has represented many criminals. I thought it was such a brilliant idea, and then I completely forgot about it. But when I moved back to Zimbabwe in 2011 after years living in Geneva, I was amazed by the amount of space all the newspapers devoted to reporting crimes – both serious crimes and more opportunistic ones. It struck me that the criminal justice system links everyone together, from the top politicians to the street vendors – it cuts across the boundaries of race and class. So it was a theme that allowed me to build up a whole panorama of Zimbabwean society.
People might imagine the president locks up everyone who disagrees with him, but his tyranny is more nuanced than that Rotten Row is very clearsighted about the system in Zimbabwe – you’re certainly not afraid to be critical. How has that gone down in Harare?
Actually, really well. I think it’s become clear to people what my motivation is. I am not simply anti-government, and I’m not in opposition to any one person; I want to write about all the things that I think are making us into an unkind society. So as well as being critical of Mugabe , I am also very critical of the church, for example. People might imagine that the president goes around locking up everyone who disagrees with him, but his tyranny is much more nuanced than that. Zimbabweans are hungry for a success story, and hungry to be acknowledged on the world stage, so I am in a strong position as a writer whose books sell internationally. I might be seen as a greater threat if I were a news journalist.
You also take aim at the world of NGOs and aid workers in some of these stories.
I felt almost guilty about that because they are such an easy target – all these people who mean well but get it so awfully wrong! I am very cynical about the way Zimbabwe has become a project – it sometimes feels like the situation exists just so certain people can keep their jobs. Some of the wealthiest people in Zimbabwe work for NGOs – they earn more than doctors or teachers, which doesn’t seem right when these are supposed to be charities. One of the most abused job descriptions is that of “human rights defender” – we need to stop and ask, what is being defended, and what is not? In the story, for example, one character points out that domestic violence kills more people than political violence – and yet political violence remains the obsession of the international NGOs. The internationalisation of the crisis has distorted the ills of our society.
Even at its darkest, your work is often funny. Is a sense of humour essential to living in Zimbabwe?
Definitely. Zimbabweans have a brilliant sense of humour – sometimes it stops us from getting as angry as we should be. But some things are just really funny. I mean, we have a 92-year-old president who has been in the job for 36 years, and he still thinks he’s not done. You really have to laugh.
What are you working on now?
I am finishing a novel that I really see as my life’s work. It is a story I have been obsessed with since I was 16, about the Africans who carried the explorer David Livingstone ’s body across the continent for nine months, braving great danger in order to bury him in his homeland. I see my other books as an apprenticeship for this one. But I have kept writing short stories while I am working on my novels, otherwise I start to bore myself. So I’m also working on a collection set in Geneva, about people working in an international organisation that shares all the worst characteristics of the UN and the World Bank. It’s called International People.
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