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Petina Gappah

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Petina Gappah
Born1971
Copperbelt Province, Zambia
OccupationLegal counsel, writer
LanguageEnglish
NationalityZimbabwean
Alma materUniversity of Zimbabwe;
University of Graz;
University of Cambridge
Notable worksAn Elegy for Easterly
Notable awardsGuardian First Book Award
Children1 son
Website
www.theworldaccordingtogappah.com

Petina Gappah (born 1971) is a Zimbabwean lawyer and writer. She writes in English, though she also draws on Shona, her first language.[1]

Biography

Petina Gappah was born in Zambia, in Copperbelt Province. She has said: "My father, like many skilled black workers who could not get jobs in segregated Rhodesia, sought his fortune elsewhere. He and my mother moved to Kitwe, a town on the booming Zambian copper belt."[2] She was brought up in Zimbabwe, where her parents returned when she was nine months old. After the country's Independence her family moved to a formerly white area in what is now Harare, and she was one of the first black pupils in a primary school formerly reserved for white children.[3] She started writing aged about 10 or 11, and her first published story was in the St. Dominic’s Secondary School magazine when she was 14.[4]

She has a law degree from the University of Zimbabwe, then in 1995 went to Austria to do a doctorate in international trade law at the University of Graz, combined with a master's degree at the University of Cambridge, and since 1998 has been based in Geneva, Switzerland, where she works as an international lawyer.[3]

Gappah said in a 2009 interview: "I started writing seriously in May 2006. I joined the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, a story I posted there caught the attention of an editor at the online journal Per Contra, I entered some stories in competitions, I did well in one competition, and when I was sufficiently confident, I looked for an agent who looked for a publisher on my behalf."[4] Gappah's first book, An Elegy for Easterly, a story collection that she says is "about what it has meant to be a Zimbabwean in recent times",[4] was published by Faber and Faber in April 2009 in the United Kingdom and in June 2009 in the United States. It was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the richest prize for the short-story form.[5] The book has been described as "a collection of stories about every layer of Zimbabwean culture: from the educated and the elite to the quirky, the completely mad and the children running in the street."[6] It won the Guardian First Book Award in 2009, at which time Gappah spoke of her objection to being labelled by her publisher (and subsequently Amazon) as "the voice of Zimbabwe", commenting in an interview: "'It's very troubling to me because writing of a place is not the same as writing for a place.... If I write about Zimbabwe, it's not the same as writing for Zimbabwe or for Zimbabweans.'"[3] An Elegy for Easterly has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Serbian and Swedish.[7]

In 2010 Gappah moved back to Harare for three years to work on her first novel, The Book of Memory.[8][9] Published in 2015, it is the fictional testament of an imprisoned albino woman on death row, who is hoping for a presidential reprieve.[10] The Book of Memory was described by Maya Jaggi in The Guardian as "a powerful story of innocent lives destroyed by family secrets and sexual jealousy, prejudice and unacknowledged kinship",[11] and by Anita Sethi in The Observer as "a moving novel about memory that unfolds into one about forgiveness, and a passionate paean to the powers of language".[12] In a 2016 interview, Gappah said: "I’m a frustrated historian, which is probably clear from the book. I’m interested in excavating the social histories of Zimbabwe.... History’s always distorted to suit a political purpose, but fiction can try to redress the balance. And those are the stories I’m interested in telling—the stories of everyday normal people, who even in this injustice still managed to find their humanity."[9]

Bibliography

  • An Elegy for Easterly, 2009
  • The Book of Memory, 2015

References

  1. ^ Williams, Susan (1 June 2009). "An Elegy for Easterly, by Petina Gappah - Reviews, Books". London: The Independent. Retrieved 13 August 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ Petina Gappah, "Where Citizenship Went to Die", The New York Times, 22 March 2013.
  3. ^ a b c Stephen Moss, "Petina Gappah: 'I don't see myself as an African writer'", The Guardian, 4 December 2009.
  4. ^ a b c "An interview with Petina Gappah", Pambazuka, 30 April 2009.
  5. ^ "FOC Award". Munsterlit.ie. 1 September 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  6. ^ "Author's Short Stories Offer Peek Into Zimbabwe". NPR. 25 June 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  7. ^ "An Elegy For Easterly", Petina Gappah website.
  8. ^ "It's official, I have moved back to Zimbabwe!", Gappah in a blog posting, 18 October 2010.
  9. ^ a b Julie Phillips, "Petina Gappah on Zimbabwe, Language, and 'Afropolitans'", Literary Hub, 22 February 2016.
  10. ^ Sarah Gilmartin, "Review: The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah", The Irish Times, 3 October 2015.
  11. ^ Maya Jaggi, "The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah review – a fictional testament from death row", The Guardian, 19 September 2015.
  12. ^ Anita Sethi, "The Book of Memory review – a vivid life story from death row", The Observer, 16 August 2015.
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