I don't want to write because I have to; I want to write because I want to. Sometimes, when writers write because they have to, the results are disastrous.

Petina Gappah

Categorized in : Write Sometimes Want Results

I was eight when independence happened. I remember my mum and dad getting dressed up to go to the independence concert to go listen to Bob Marley. Independence was such a wonderful time; we had so many expectations of the kind of country we would become. The vision of the government then was a wonderful vision.

vision dad government time

The struggle for Zimbabwe lit up the imagination of people around the world. In London, New York, Accra and Lagos, bell-bottomed men and women with big hair and towering platform shoes sang the dream of Zimbabwe in the words of the eponymous song by Bob Marley: Every man has the right to decide his own destiny.

man women song men

Zimbabweans, I've come to believe, we are very passive-aggressive people. We don't like conflict; we don't like confrontation, so we find all sorts of ways of avoiding that conflict and confrontation. We are not allowed to talk about bad things that go on in families.

bad conflict believe people

There are some people who are happy to be African writers. They are pan-Africanists. I'm not a pan-Africanist. I think African countries have a lot in common. But we are also very different.

some-people think happy people

There's a Shona saying: 'chakafukidza dzimba matenga' - 'What covers the home is the roof,' or 'Every home has its secrets.'

secrets saying roof home

My grandfather was a polygamous man, and he had two wives, and between him and his two wives, we are about 200 or so in our family.

man family grandfather two

You could have names like Hatred; you could have names that mean something like Suffering or Poverty. So names are not just names: names have real meaning, and they tend to tell the world about the circumstances of your parents at the time that you were born.

parents you time world

I get irritated by the term 'African writer', because it doesn't mean anything to me.

anything get me mean

I speak English. I dream in it. I cannot separate my English from my Shona; I see the world with those two languages.

see speak dream world

It was one of those early mid-life crises, really. I started asking myself, 'What is it that I want from my life?' This question kept haunting me: 'Do I want to be a lawyer who always wanted to be a writer, or do I actually want to be a writer?

my-life myself me life

I'm not even sure that I want to go back... The Zimbabwe that I really loved, the Zimbabwe that I grew up in, just isn't there anymore, and I'm not sure about the country that has replaced it.

loved back go country

Only al-Jazeera is allowed to report from Zimbabwe, but it is unwatchable. Their Zimbabwean reporter Supa Mandiwanzira was one of Zanu-PF's praise-singers at the reviled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.

reporter only zimbabwe broadcasting

On April 18, 1980, the last outpost of empire in Africa died. From Rhodesia's ashes rose a country that would take its place among the free nations as Zimbabwe, the last among equals. And men and women leapt to embrace this dream called Zimbabwe.

place women rose men

I guess you could say I'm lucky because I've known a Zimbabwe that didn't have Robert Mugabe leading it. One of the saddest things about Zimbabwe is there are so many hidden casualties of the Mugabe government's misrule. They're not just casualties that you immediately see.

see you lucky government

The first thing I remember when I moved to a school in the suburbs was, 'My gosh, all these books!' The classroom and school had a library; I'd never seen so many books in my life! It was something we didn't have in the township.

my-life library life school

I actually don't sleep much; I only need about four hours a night.

need only sleep night

'Authentic' is one of my least favourite words because in such a diverse country, whose authenticity are you talking about?

words you talking country

These are the kinds of names that Zimbabweans like: names that have positive qualities. Like, Praise is a very popular name; Loveness is a very popular name.

name like praise positive

If I truly had the courage of my convictions, I would be a full-blown comic novelist.

convictions would comic courage

What we are trying to do now, this new generation of African writers, is to write about what it is to be a human being living in a particular African country. These are stories that resonate with anyone, anywhere.

generation new trying country