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On Not Being Wilbur Smith: The Challenges of The White African Writer

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It took me a long time to realise that my birth in Africa was not accidental, that growing up in Zimbabwe was not a wrong that had to be put right by leaving the country, and that continuing to live here, to have my children born here, and to call myself an African writer was not a wild, audacious statement that should be corrected and apologised for. It took me a long time to call this continent my home.     Like many white people in Africa, I grew up straddling two worlds. I read Enid Blyton and looked for fairies and elves amongst the bougainvillea and mango trees.  I thought snake holes would take me to the Mad Hatter's tea party.  Christmas in the heat and humidity of December always felt wrong; we should have snowmen and mistletoe, go sledging and sing Christmas carols wrapped in scarves and coats. The two worlds were something we took in our stride without much questioning.  We knew how to navigate them, how to be both white and African at the same time. ...
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Writing Beyond My Boundaries: Peter Carty's Travel Writing Course

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For some time, I kept getting an email from the Guardian advertising a travel writing course with Peter Carty.  Of course, it is one of those computer-generated things; at least once a week, I am informed of teaching jobs in Nepal or media placements in London.  However, the frequency of the ad, and the fact that it was always the same one, encouraged me to look into it.  I have been planning to give up teaching for some time now and considering ways to make money from my writing.  I couldn't help thinking that perhaps this was a sign. Many people think if you can write, you can write anything.  Is there much difference between writing a crime novel and describing a trip to the Great Barrier Reef?  Well, yes, there is actually.  I have written some travel articles over the years: sometimes a review of a place I have stayed at; sometimes something wider in scope.  I enjoy writing articles with an historical basis - like one I did of interesting chu...
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Whatever Happened to Rick Astley? He Grew Up

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  Whatever happened to Rick Astley? may be an unusual title for a book of short stories set in Africa. Western expectations of African literature demand something more exotic, something at least with connotations of heat, dust and hardship.   Like every place, Africa has more than one side to it and there are as many different experiences as there are people and places.   Growing up in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, my life was an interesting mixture of experiences.   I lived on a gold mine out in the bush.   There were snakes and scorpions – and fear. It was an unstable time politically in post-Independence Zimbabwe.   Not everyone wanted the ruling party, ZANU-PF, in power and, in retaliation, the government sent North-Korean trained soldiers to Matabeleland to ‘sort them out’. This time of anxiety left an indelible mark on me. In other aspects, my life was ‘normal’ by Western standards.   I went to school, played sport, belonged to the library and watche...
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Christmas in Africa

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 As I write this, it is 35C, the sky is miles and miles and miles of unpunctured blue, and the air is hot and still.  I am sitting in the coolest room in the house, escaping the heat outside.  As I look around me at the Christmas tree in the corner, the tinsel adorning the pictures and the stockings hung next to the fireplace, I think like I always think at this time of the year: wouldn't it be nice to be somewhere cold? And then I think, no.  It wouldn't be Christmas if it wasn't hot. I was ten years old when Band Aid brought out Do They Know It's Christmas? I remember my dad, who was very cynical of western do-gooders, scoffing at the lyrics,  And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time.  Of course there won't, he said.  There never is.  It is generally very difficult for people in the northern hemisphere to imagine a hot Christmas and I don't blame them.  What is strange though is to try and have a cold Christmas in a hot country...
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Too Many Walls, Not Enough Bridges

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  Whenever my daughter wants to imitate me, she will assume a wistful tone, look into the distance and say something along the lines of: ‘When I was a child, none of the gardens had walls.   We just roamed free, wandering across neighbours’ lawns, picking flowers and swinging from the trees. Nobody locked their doors either, so we just walked through their houses as well, helping ourselves to whatever we wanted.’ Ok, I get the point.   It is easy to look back at the past through rose-drenched glasses and imagine a fairytale world in which there was no crime and everyone loved each other.   It’s par for the course when you get to a certain age and even more common in older Zimbabweans who view the past as a virtual Eden from which they have been ejected. I will try and be as objective as possible.   We were never like some parts of the world, like America, where one lawn seems to run into another and where boundaries are marked by driveways.   When I was...
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Good People Who Do Bad Things

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   My elderly friend and I are discussing the possibility of becoming gold dealers.  It seems everyone is at it these days.  I recently contacted someone who did some work on our driveway a couple of years ago and discovered he no longer does crazy paving; instead, he has become a gold dealer in Esigodeni. I imagine him meeting customers in the back room of some shabby establishment or drawing up next to them in the car park of some shebeen and handing over a bag of gold nuggets in exchange for large wads of money.  'You'd never do it,' says my friend.  'You'd be caught almost immediately.' I must say, I am a little offended.  I don't particularly want to be a gold dealer, but nor do I like being told I lack the ability to be one. However, I know what she means.  I'd be too nice.  Of course, that might just be my  modus operandi.   It would certainly provide a good cover and it save me the need to meet clients in dodgy hotels i...
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The Brokenness of Beautiful Things

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    I am often asked by friends and family who don't live in Zimbabwe why we still stay here. It is not a question that is easily answered, except to say why does anyone live anywhere?  We all have things to complain about wherever we are in the world.  Those who don't experience power or water cuts will complain about traffic jams or the weather.  Nowhere is perfect. Recently, I wrote on Facebook how excited we were when the electricity, that had been off for nine days, came back on.  It was actually longer as we had had nearly a week prior to this of being one phase down, so we had no lights, but some sockets worked and half of the stove as well. Nine days is by no means a long time at all to go without electricity, and nor is two weeks.  Some people I know have gone without for three to six months, a year even.  I am sure there are those on my Facebook page who even wonder why I mention it at all. Surely this is to be expected when you live in ...
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