Petina Gappah
| Petina Gappah | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1971 Copperbelt Province, Zambia |
| Occupation | Legal counsel, writer |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Zimbabwean |
| Alma mater |
University of Zimbabwe; University of Graz; University of Cambridge |
| Notable works | An Elegy for Easterly |
| Notable awards | Guardian First Book Award |
| Children | 1 son |
| Website | |
| www |
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Petina Gappah (born 1971) is a Zimbabwean lawyer and writer. She writes in English, though she also draws on Shona, her first language.
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." 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. 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.
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.
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." 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", 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. 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." 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.'"An Elegy for Easterly has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Serbian and Swedish.
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