Bryony's Blog

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. ...

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...

  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...