Gappah rising star in Zim literature

Because Petina has been living abroad, there was a sense of pride and of homecoming as well-known poet Musa Zimunya commenced proceedings and congratulated Petina on her achievements. Clad in his trademark velours cap and shirt of many colours, Zimunya touched on some of the most moving of her narratives.
Petina, whose work has been published in eight countries, has been promoting her collection of stories on a tour traversing America and South Africa, and culminating in her hometown, Harare.
Born in 1971, she was educated at Alfred Beit Primary School, St Dominic’s in Chishawasha, and at St Ignatius College.
After studying Law at the University of Zimbabwe, she proceeded to post-graduate studies in the universities of Graz and of Cambridge. Although currently based in Geneva, where the organisation she works for provides legal aid on international law to developing countries, Zimbabwe and writing remain close to her heart.
Closely observing and listening to every situation she encounters, brings her to an understanding of human nature, portrayed in her stories with wit, humour and insight. 
The quality of “emotional truth”, described by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, winner of the Orange Prize as essential to effective story telling, is the cornerstone of Gappah’s inspiration, and will ensure her place among leading writers over the next decade. 
The story that gives the anthology its title, An Elegy for Easterly, describes life on Easterly Farm, a settlement a few kilometres outside the capital city.
While the original inhabitants are farm workers, the majority of residents are informal traders who rise at dawn and make their way to town to buy and sell vegetables or to wheel and deal at Siyaso, the spare parts market. The microcosm that is Easterly Farm has its fair share of mental illness, murders and adultery. The mysterious pregnancy of the mad woman who lives alone, nicknamed Martha Mupengo, is finally accounted for, but the birth of her child coincides with the destruction of the settlement by Government bulldozers.
Reminiscent of actual events at Porta Farm outside Harare some years ago, the reader is reminded of murambatsvina, the clean-up programme that made so many people homeless.
The demands of Gappah’s legal profession require her to rise at four o’clock every morning, when she commits the night time’s literary inspirations to paper and perfects her writer’s craft. When I asked if she had ever considered reading for a degree in English Literature rather than in Law, she said that it had never been an option. She and her siblings were raised by their parents to be professionals and urged to study law or medicine.