Whatever Happened to Rick Astley? He Grew Up
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...