On Writing
I think one of the hardest things about writing a novel is convincing others you are up to the job. For some reason, saying you want to be a writer is akin to saying you want to be an astronaut or a brain surgeon. You get that look – you know the one adults use with children? Oh, that’s nice! And really you know they’re inwardly shaking their heads or, worse, they’ve already dismissed the thought so that, the next time you mention it, you either get a blank stare or that look my mother used to give me when I insisted on doing something she didn’t like – Well, we’ll speak to your father about it, but I doubt he’ll like it either. Zimbabwe had descended into complete economic and political chaos while I was in the throes of writing This September Sun and suddenly everyone was writing their memoirs: the war years, the years on the farm, their years in Africa. I rem...