"Sing a new song unto the Lord, let your song be sung, from mountains high."

And by the Lord, I mean Barack Hussein Obama, or, in what passes as wit in some sections of the Republican punditry, The Anointed One. Some Republicanesques are up in arms about a cute song some elementary school kids made up and sang as part of their celebrations of Black History Month:

Barack Hussein Obama,

Mmm mmm mmm.

He said we must all take a stand

to make our country strong again,

Mmm mmm mmm.

Barack Hussein Obama

Mmm mmm mmm.

He said we must be clear today,

equal work means equal pay

mmm mmm mmm

Barack Hussein Obama.

Brainwashing, they are screaming! Khmer Rouge! Personality cults!

Then there was that kitenge dress worn recently by total cutie Victoria Rowell above.

Now, President Obama, if you are reading this, I know a man who leads a country in which women very happily wear his face on their boobs and bottoms, and in which children sing praise songs in his honour. If you watched Amanpour on CNN last week, you may have seen him looking like Tootles the old Lost Boy in the Robin Williams version of Peter Pan who could not find his marbles. Also, he made his quintrillionth address to the General Assembly the same day that you made your first. You are the fifth American to be president since he's been in power. I am sure you know who I mean. Trust me when I say that you do not want to be spoken about in the same breath as that man. A word to the wise and all that. Wink wink.

An open question for Madame Chantal Biya, First Lady of Cameroon

Please click on this image to see it in its full glory. Take a hard long look at Chantal Biya, the first lady of Cameroon, then please join me in asking her this question: why, Madame Biya, why?


Image posted by the US State Department to Flickr, and a million thanks to the sharp-eyed member of the Gawker commentariat who alerted me to it.

In which "The Economist" redeems itself in my eyes

I have a love-hate relationship with The Economist. On the love side, I found the two jobs I have had in Geneva in The Economist. I love their house style - no magazine has such a clear and identifable style where every article, no matter who writes it, has that distinctive Economist voice. For that reason, I keep their style guide next to my Strunk and White at work. I love the little slices of absurdity that they manage to unearth in almost every issue and that very dry, very English humour that shines through the straitlacedness.

And I love their covers. George Bush looking bemused as "The Accidental President". Kim Jong Il in his 70s style gear saying "Greetings, Earthlings". Silvio Berlusconi at his oiliest, smirking up to the words "Mamma mia. Here We Go Again".

But it is also the covers that bring out the hate side - their Africa covers. Man. They have this thing where they will do one cover devoted to Africa, and I have absolutely loathed, loathed each one, and especially the one where President Bob Mugabe's moustache was darkened and Hitlerised. But the cover for the current issue, which I have scanned for your enjoyment, is just stunning. I love everything about it. Every little thing. And what is better still - it looks even better in colour.

Meet John Minihan, Samuel Beckett's favourite photographer

Something amazing happened to the writers who were in Cork last week for the Frank O'Connor festival. We were all photographed by John Minihan, Samuel Beckett's favourite photographer. John has captured the images of Irish writers like Seamus Heaney, Edna O'Brien, John McGahern and Maeve Binchy. He has also photographed Iris Murdoch, Sir John Gieldgud, Cecil Beaton and Lady Diana Spencer just before she married Prince Charles. I was quite thrilled to find in a bookshop called Vines and Scribes a book of his photographs of Irish writers, which I promptly asked him to sign. He had some wonderful stories about his subjects, and some very warm memories of Diana. Another reason to like John: I met one of his very close friends, a stylish lady with the funkiest bangs this side of eternity, and she is the neighbour of my secret husband Jeremy Irons, who has a home in West Cork. I have a feeling that I may be back in Ireland soon for my secret wedding anniversary celebrations with my secret husband.

Please enjoy the outstanding photograph above of Samuel Beckett. John Minihan holds the copyright to this and other images at his website, john.minihan.com. I urge you to call on him there and see a master at work. Prints are also available.

Uwem Akpan's "Say You Are One of Them" and the Oprah Book Club

Now here is news that has cheered me immensely. Since it was announced that Oprah has made Uwem Akpan's Say You Are One of Them her next pick for the Oprah Book Club, sales of his book have shot up to make his the 11th bestselling book on Amazon.com. I kid you not. It is a frightening sort of power that Oprah has, but I am happy that it is benefitting a writer from Africa.

... And a writer of short stories for that matter. This is the year of the short story, for sure.

Not everyone is celebrating ...

Over at The Huffington Post, Tin House editor Rob Spillman has an uncharacteristically mean-spirited attack on Oprah's pick. Now, I have met Rob a couple of times, and he is a nice guy. He is interested in African writing, but he is hardly what you would call an expert: his recently published Penguin anthology of African Writing very curiously included writers who have not published a single book, but left out a number of titans, most notably, Dambudzo Marechera and Tsitsi Dangarembga. A couple of years ago, he wrote a Vanity Fair article about African literature that was sprinkled with embarrassing errors: including totally misunderstanding the subject matter of The Stone Virgins by Yvonne Vera, a novel that he touted as one of Africa's finest ...

I was willing to cut him some slack because he is genuinely interested in promoting African writing, and his heart is in the right place. But his Huffington Post comment goes too far. Because here we have an American who lives in New York telling us that the work of a Nigerian writer who has lived, travelled and worked across Africa presents the wrong image of Africa.

Uwem Akpan has every right to write about the horrors of African wars. For as long as Africans have wars, writers will write about them. Uwem has chosen to write about them. That is the subject he has chosen for himself. I refuse to accept the notion that "African writers" are supposed to educate the West about the "true" Africa, whatever that is. I get irritated of course, when people assume that all Africans are only one thing or the other, but I would never let my irritation carry me so far that I tell another writer what to write, or encourage self-censorship. Writers, even writers from Africa, can and should be as optimistic or pessimistic as they wish.

Spillman's criticism finds an echo in something that Ruby Magosvongwe, a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe said about my book at a recent Book Cafe discussion. Irony and humour can lead us to see ourselves in a discouraging light, she said, so in order to "move forward we need more positive attitudes". I fear that Ms Magosvongwe may have mistaken me for the press officer in the public relations department of the Ministry of Nation-Building. And I am not sure who this "we" is that she is speaking for, but I very much fear that Ms Magosvongwe, and her collective "we", will continue to be disappointed because I will not now, and not ever, be the national cheer-leader.

And to Uwem Akpan, many congratulations. I hope that this will be the first of many African books to be picked by the Oprah Book Club.

In which "An Elegy for Easterly" finds its way to Brussels, and I make a plea to lift the targeted sanctions on Zanu PF Ministers

I have such a great sister, or sisters, I should say, because I have two. My little sister Vimbayi is pretty cool, but this post is about my sister Regina, who has been an absolute star in pushing An Elegy for Easterly in Harare. She works for the European Commission's Humanitarian Office (ECHO) in Harare, and has a million and eleven friends and colleagues both in and out of the Commission who have been absolutely great and supportive. She is also wildly popular in her social circle, which helps me no end. Last week, the European Union sent a group to meet with the government in Harare, and, never one to miss an opportunity to flog my book, Regina gave it to EU Development Commissioner Karel de Gucht. Commissioner de Gucht once described someone as "a mix between Harry Potter and a rigid bourgeois without charisma". I hope he enjoys my book at least as much as Harry Potter.

And who knows, maybe my little purple book will be The Little Book That Could and soften Europe's hard-line stance (O you hard hearts, you cruel men of the Treaty of Rome!) so that they heed Zanu PF's increasingly hysterical and agitated calls to Remove! The! Unwarranted! And Illegal! Not To Mention Immoral! Targeted! Sanctions! That Are Preventing! Zanu PF Ministers! From Shopping! At Harrods!

As a loyal daughter of the soil, I echo that call. Commissioner de Gucht will, no doubt, spread the word about the genius of my work, and Commissioners and important people in Brussels will google me and find this blog. If you are reading this, people in Brussels, please, please, please allow Zanu PF ministers to fly into Europe. Spare a thought, if you will, for the poor people of Zimbabwe who have been hearing heh and then there are these sanctions heh, and then these sanctions they are illegal sanctions heh and the sanctions that are illegal sanctions are also unwarranted sanctions and heh the illegal sanctions that are unwarranted sanctions heh the sanctions the sanctions maiwe, the sanctions the sanctions baba kani on a daily basis. You should read The Herald, people in Brussels, and watch the daily news on ZBC, there is rarely a day that has gone past in the last eight years in which these sanctions are not mentioned. Did I mention that they are illegal?

If you will do nothing to lift the tedium under which adult Zimababweans have been despairing , people in Brussels, then think of the children. I know you like little brown children frisking in the dust with the chickens, so, please, think of the children. Zimbabweans are particularly good at picking names for their children that reveal the circumstances of their birth. So there are children, people in Brussels, who, right this minute, are running around with names like Nosanctions Manatsa, Illegal Mukondo, Unwarranted Interference Choto, Antiimperialist Ncube and Defiant Tshabalala. So please, let those Minsiters in, please let them in, if only to stop them talking all the freaking, bleeding time about the freaking, bleeding sanctions, because really, enough already.

Image of Commissioner de Gucht holding my book while Regina, other officials and a very fierce looking bodyguard look on. Courtesy of Regina Gapa-Chinyanga.

In which Ranga Mberi celebrates the first anniversary of Zimbabwe's Government of National Unity

You will notice that I have not been saying much about Zimbabwe lately; there is a lot to say, but I have been sparing the snark in part because of my occassional malaise, Zimfatigue and in part because of my focus on my novel. And ... one can only snark so much. I also genuinely want this deal to work, if only to lead us to an election whose result will not be contested because Zanu PF will have lost so resoundingly decisively. So there are many things to mock, but I have been good. Well, I do have something coming up in the next few days, and I am finalising a new one-act play in which the Principals Address the Outstanding Issues. But those are matters for another day.

Today is the anniversary of the signing of the Global Political Agreement that gave us this GNU. I want to give space to my friend and favourite cynic turned optimist, Ranga Mberi, the best non-journalisting journalist in the business. As you will see from this brilliantly acerbic off the cuff piece, no one preaches optimism like a converted cynic. I have had to edit just three words, this is after all, a family blog.

I must say the last three paragraphs left little lumps in my throat. Damn you, Ranga. And happy birthday, GNU, I heartily wish you no more returns because they can only be unhappy ones!

____________________

Ok, so here we are, one full year since we sat in that HICC place and watched our Three Leaders sign The Deal!

How time flies. Seems like yesterday when I sat between my good pal Lovemore Mataire, and Cde Chinos.

I remember that this was a day after the Lehman Brothers collapse. Scrolling through the market carnage on Forbes as we waited for the Three Leaders to make the usual African-leader entrance (whistles, trumpets, mipururu and whatnot), and thinking, geez, the tone of the coverage of the Lehman collapse - like, ‘gasp, this is it, this is the end of the world. Abandon all hope’.

Cowardly, spoilt capitalist brats, I thought.

Compared to what we were coming out of, even the fall of a 160-year-old pillar of capitalism was some weak shit to us here, Chinos and all of us.

Look, here I was, sitting close to a man that was, like Osama, Mullah Omar, Amy Winehouse and other terrorists, banned from Europe and America.

In Chinos’ case, it’s because he told some white farmer; “Hey, you, white man, your farm is on my land!” Legend!

But now, here we were, cheering on this GNU animal together.

Life is certainly better under the new govt. Not perfect. Better.

Nobody said it would be perfect. Not the Robster, King of Kings and Lords of Lords, Chancellor of Universities, Lord of the Flies whatnot, or whatever they call him these days. Not Morgan. Things must be better; why else hasn’t he hidden in a foreign embassy since last year? Neither did Arthur (cough, cough, spit spit).

The fact is we are better off than we were last year. We ARE.

We are yet to deal with many big issues, that’s for sure. We know. And so the likes of Human Rights Watch and Crisis in Zimbabwe, nedzimwe nhundiramutsime dzakadaro dzechiNGO-NGO, need not bust a bladder reminding us. We know. It’s their job, their livelihood, to be unhappy on our behalf, and to spread as much of their unhappiness around as possible. It’s a job.

They are free to be miserable if that’s what gets them paid.

We’ve grown chronic in our cynicism. And this is coming from a born cynic (I hate a lot of things). We are negativity addicts. We scour the net for the worst news from Zimbabwe. When we don’t find enough, we create our own, just to feed our addiction.

Like crack addicts who would sell their family jewels to feed their habit, we don’t mind having the world laugh at us while we leave what little remaining dignity we have out on the street.

Like those sad morons at Sokwanele who believe “research reports” saying we are a failed state, only a step above Somalia.

Anyone that believes – and spreads - that kind of bullshit is a (rhymes with ducked-up), deranged (rhymes with munt) that must be boiled in oil. And forced to watch a whole tennis match. And forced to listen to country music … (wink, wink) if you know what I’m playing at.

(Speaking of which, NewZim didn’t tell us what country song in particular was played up in that Bulawayo hotel room, as that guy was getting some traffic up and down his back-road like poor Tim Robbins in the Shawshank Redemption. Wink. Allegedly, I must add, allegedly. I’d guess the song must have been that ‘like a rhinestone cowboy, riding my horse in the rodeo …’ song. Fits the occasion. The alleged occasion, I said.)

…ok, leaving the gutter …

I don’t work for a ‘rights NGO’. I’m not one of those journos that would never be published if they weren’t writing about ‘Mugabe regime’. So I delight in the positives.

The little victories I see every day. I cheer them.

Like the men on orange uniforms that have been collecting rubbish from behind my flat every weekend. The men that are laying new water pipes across the city, ripping out the old. The filled potholes on the road to my hometown. The fact that I can find petrol at 1am anywhere in Zimbabwe.

The fact that a friend had his house flooded last week after he had left his taps open, having had no water for months. Good problem.

Or the nurses I met this past weekend at Harare Hospital, working for $140 a month. Or the companies that are turning in real profits. The vacancies column in the Herald. Arriving at my parents’ gate with mom’s new car! Being able to save! Shopping. Debit card. Mereki. Steak. Transit Crew. Jonathan back in the fold. 3G!

I like. I prefer.

Zvinhu zvirikutofamba so. Muchingogwauta nekubhabhauka. Deeply flawed as it is, however slowly, we are making progress.

And I delight in Patrick. He was beaten to within death’s whisper last year by Zanu thugs. Taken from his school and tortured for two days. Two weeks ago, I met Patrick, an English teacher, coaching cricket kuFio.

He is bitter, but isn’t making a career out of spreading it around. There’s a quiet determination about him.

He limps, but he smiles. Much like Zimbabwe herself.

Joseph Chikowero on "Harare North" by Brian Chikwava

Continuing this blog's series of Zimbabwean writers on Zimbabwean books, here is Joseph Chikowero with a masterly assessment of Brian Chikwava's Harare North. Joseph Chikowero researches on African literature and film and writes from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. You can contact him at chikoweroATgmail.com.

I disagree with Joseph only in one respect, he concludes that in Chikwava, Zimbabwe has discovered another Dambudzo Marechera. To the contrary, Zim may just have discovered the first Chikwava.

_______________________

Reacting to the omission of Amos Tutuola from a major African Writers’ Conference at Makerere University in Uganda in 1962, Obi Wali famously protested that "any true African literature must be written in African languages," a war cry later championed by Kenyan writer and scholar, Ngugi wa Thiong’o. While the language debate in African literature raged, Nigerian writer and minority rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, quietly published Sozaboy, a novel he subtitled “A Novel in Rotten English”. The critical reception of Sozaboy confirmed that there is a middle ground in the language debate. Itself the story of a semi-literate army conscript, Sozaboy employs Nigerian Pidgin to render the unique perspective of its protagonist in a way that conventional English may never have rendered. Award-winning British-based Zimbabwean writer, Brian Chikwava seems destined to give a whole new dimension to the malleability of language in literary practice in his new novel, aptly titled Harare North.

Chikwava, winner of the prestigious Caine Prize for African Fiction in 2004 for his short story, Seventh Street Alchemy, employs a dialect of English that readers will quickly associate with the unnamed narrator’s limited formal education and his experience in Zimbabwe as well as a shadowy member of the forgotten class in London and Brixton. Like Saro-Wiwa’s Mene, Chikwava’s unnamed narrator is unabashed about his less-than-average education and yet claims to be a highly disciplined man whose sole mission in Harare North – a Zimbabwean colloquial reference to Britain and especially London – is to put together US$5 000 so as to return home and pay for the wrongs he has committed as a member of Robert Mugabe’s notorious militia commonly called Green Bombers and for which he is reportedly wanted by the police.

In this dark comedy, Harare North proves to be far different from the gold-paved paradise of Zimbabwean lore. For starters, the narrator discovers that kinship bonds mean little in a place where time and money are permanently in short supply. His cousin, Paul, and his wife, Sekai, show no particular interest in his plight and are only too happy when he moves in with an old school friend, Shingi. Determined though he is, the narrator finds that his status as an undocumented and unskilled African immigrant carries a heavy tax such as being shortchanged by Eastern European managers of construction projects who religiously exploit him and the necessity of steering clear of all forms of officialdom, especially the police. If Chikwava’s novel thematizes the often poignant realities of African immigration, the story itself is spiced with a certain kind of wry humor that seems to propel the narrator in his increasingly hopeless quest. Recording his nasty experience at one construction site, the protagonist says, “You spend them weeks shifting mud with shovels and sweat beads come out of every pore in the body because you is putting out heaps of effort while your buttocks point to high heaven and migrant flesh start to stink around you as shirts and underpants get damp. Here you quickly know that the weight of your buttocks increase by the hour and come down only by night when you is sandwiched between blanket and mattress.” (49)

Like Sozaboy before it, Harare North shows and in fact celebrates the elusive transformation of language when a painful story is told from a half-educated and not-so-bright narrator’s point of view. The narrator’s experience as a Green Bomber has already taught him the use and abuse of words. Throughout the narrative, for instance, he uses “forgiveness” to mean “punishment”, a direct result of the brutal partisan youth training he has received from the Mugabe regime in the name of patriotism. It is in fact in the name of misguided patriotism that he commits atrocities that force him to abandon Zimbabwe. While the Zimbabwean experience has taught him to bastardize the English language to serve narrow political ends, the narrator gradually learns that British society has its own euphemisms and double-speak. When a fellow sufferer is confronted by a bus driver for using a fake pass, the narrator listens to the exchange:

“Where did you get your card from, sir?” the driver say playing big mischief with politeness. This title that the mud-shifting boy have been given is too heavy for him now.

‘Sir?” The driver pull down his glasses in professor-style so they sit low on his nose. This ‘sir’ put Sulieman in proper straitjacket. His tongue weigh same as hippo and he can’t lift it now. He turn his head to the door, spot an opening and go for it. His trousers explode and rip as he leap over pram.(51)

It is this double-speak that makes the narrator conclude that Harare North is in fact, a “big con”.(ibid) Despite his own claims to being a disciplined ‘military person’, the narrator quietly turns predator and begins to feed off his friend, Shingi, whom he lavishes with false praise. In one of the funniest moments in the narrative, Shingi expresses his desire to acquire a fake EU passport and the narrator quickly praises him for dreaming big, telling him that he will soon be “a big Frenchman” and even starts calling him Mr. Chirac while adding, “Maybe when you get back home you can tell big story about life in Harare North; big story about how you became laborer, sewage drain cleaner and then French president; being many people in one.” Now thriving on this protean capacity to smile and beguile, the narrator has effectively joined the band of predators and survivors like Aleck who sublets rooms in a house he is supposed to be taking care of for free or Tsitsi, the unfortunate young mother who hires out her baby to fellow immigrant women who need to present themselves as single mothers to the council officials responsible for conducting free housing interviews. While shunning work as a BBC – an acronym for British Buttock Cleaner - , the narrator appoints himself caretaker of Shingi’s finances and is happily surprised when he learns that Sekai, the wife of his cousin Paul, has been secretly seeing a Russian doctor and for a while Sekai becomes the narrator’s benefactor.

In a sense, this is a surreal narrative often punctuated by hallunations ranging from dreams of working at plush London hotels where rich Arabic princes give huge tips to returning home to Zimbabwe in grand style. Not only do these fantasies remain unfulfilled but they seem to emanate from the narrator’s experiences as a member of the Green Bomber militia in Zimbabwe. In the end when he suffers a mental breakdown and devotes his time to smoking and hunting down a rat while insisting that he has the HIV virus, the reader is left with the impression that there are bigger spiritual forces – possibly an avenging spirit from the dark days in the militia - at play. Like Mene, the hero of Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy who joins the army in the name of protecting his town during the Nigerian civil war only to be betrayed at every turn, Chikwava’s protagonist’s patriotic pretensions are put to test when he learns that the government of Robert Mugabe has in fact kicked out everyone, including his own people, from his village because emeralds have been discovered in the area. Readers familiar with the recent discovery of diamonds in a certain part of Zimbabwe and the subsequent mass evacuation of the poverty-smitten villagers will be struck by this close allusion.

The novel’s enduring message though seems to be captured in this statement by the narrator at a point in the story when he has decided to quit manual labor in favor of extortion and manipulation: “History is littered with them ruined underpants of small people leaping about in vex style and trying to save them bread from the long throats of big people.” It is no surprise then when the narrator learns that even his commander in the youth militia, Comrade Mhiripiri, has in fact been trying to con him of US$5 000 and is now himself on the run.

It is however, the effortless humor and convincing ease with which Chikwava records events in the narrator’s London experience that any reader will enjoy, whether it is two Zimbabweans breaking a whole loaf of bread into two and offering some to a poor white boy or Congolese musicians masquerading as Cameroonians or even the narrator “applying” himself to his housemates’ food in their absence. Even in the midst of a feisty African music performance, the increasingly erratic narrator perceives a claiming of space by the marginalized Africans:

Kinshasa boy. He do sharp feint. He sway and step. Bobbing head. Phantom step; he almost shake. One jink and he send the whole audience swaying the wrong way. Then it come one deadly sideways leap of the eyebrow that kill all the xenophobia, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia and yugoslavia that exist in London.(138)

In the end, Chikwava convincingly tells a dispassionate story about Zimbabwe’s recent implosion and its repercussions, in particular forced immigration while broadening the borders of world Englishes in serious fiction. This is also a novel about middle – and marginal - spaces in another senses; it speaks to the potentially tragic consequences for some individuals of the recent Zimbabwean migration wave without claiming to represent every exiled Zimbabwean.

In Harare North, Chikwava has delivered a memorable narrative of the Zimbabwean and African Diaspora, the Janus faces of exile, migrant mental health issues, African masculinities under stress of exile and consequences of state terror while constantly drawing attention to material and political conditions on the mother continent itself. With the promise shown by Seventh Street Alchemy and now Harare North, Zimbabwe may have discovered yet another Dambudzo Marechera in Brian Chikwava.

Twenty five highlights from my amazing and astounding Antipodean adventure

Melbourne. What fun I had there. Here, in no particular order, are some highlights from my Antipodean trip.

_______________

1. The Cazalet Bride. Her husband, the Cazalet Groom. Their children, the Cazalet heirs. And their dogs, the Cazalet curs. I had a wonderful time with my new friend Gary Cazalet and his lovely wife and family. He is one of those scarily brilliant lawyers who read all the time, and have read everything. I am a little worried about his obsession with Arthur Ransome though, he may need therapy. And I was filled with all sorts of kitchen envy, they have an Aga in their kitchen and they read Aga sagas as they cook over the Aga. Well no, but when I grow up, I will have a kitchen with an Aga and do just that!

2. The team at Allen and Unwin, who arranged my fabulous publicity. If you want to buy An Elegy for Easterly in Australia, it is now everywhere. I mean that. There is no escaping it. A million thanks to Renee, Miranda and everyone!

3. I am grateful to The Australian Broadcasting Corporation for the interviews and profiles, and especially Sarah Le Strange at The Book Show, Eleanor Hall at The World Today, and Adelaine Ng, who invited me to do a spontaneous live interview which led to so many other great things.

4. Cheryl and Colleen of Sabona magazine, who heard me talk to Adelaine and Phil and are now helping me reach a wide group of Southern Africans in Australia. Thank you so much for another spontaneous encounter.

5. My cousin Dorcas, and my old friend Admire and his wife Tanya who came to my events. And my new friend Shannon, who was an absolute star. Thank you so much, peeps.

6. The Melbourne Writers Festival, Rosemary Cameron, Stephen Grimwade and the whole team, and all the volunteers, and Louise with the lovely lolly. What a superbly smooth operation it was. And I was delighted to be invited to a lunch with some of the donors who made this Festival great. I have loved each festival I attended this year, but this one was the only one where I got to hear and see so many other writers (see number 8 below). I also got to attend the launch of the latest McSweeny's and hang out with some seriously groovy people, which was groovy.

7. All the people who came to my sessions, and, indeed, to all the sessions for all the writers, and who bought my books. You have no idea how much this debut writer valued you giving your precious time, and some of you even turned out for my Sunday morning session too, when you could have been doing more worthwhile things, like sleeping in. In this terrible economy, it is wonderful that so many of you are still buying books, and supporting writers. Please don't stop. And thank you!

8. Spending time with Kamila, Reif, Morris, Chris and Alexander. Giving their full names will only lead to an extravaganza of name dropping. Oh why not. Dominic Dunne, the most famous name dropper of them all is dead, and so in his honour, I will drop a few names: Chris Flynn, Kamila Shamsie, Reif Larsen, Morris Gleitzmann. And Alexander Waugh, with whom I have established a mutual admiration society. Alexander Waugh gives me more opportunity to name drop since he is the son of Auberon Waugh and grandson of Evelyn Waugh. Top that, Dominick Dunne.

9. Joe Cinque's Consolation, by Helen Garner. I am indebted to Gary for this recommendation. I bought it at 4 o'clock on the Monday that I left Melbourne, and by 12 pm that night I had finished it and was sitting trembling with shock as my Qantas flight took off into the night. (The shock was from the book, not the flight, as for Qantas, see 13 below.) It is quite the best book about law and ethics that I have read in a while, and possibly the best work of non-fiction I have read since The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

10. I am even more besotted with Helen Garner now than I was after reading The Spare Room last year.

11. Seeing Helen Garner in real life. She is very small and generous and funny.

12. Shopping in Melbourne! Eating in Melbourne! Drinking in Melbourne! The best mojitos that side of the date line! Little Creatures, I salute you!

13. Qantas. What a great airline. And what a lot of movies to watch.

14. Hong Kong International Airport. What a fantastic place to shop. As I strolled from Chanel to Hermes, Hermes to Ferragamo, all in one tiny space, I felt a curious kinship with my first lady, Grace Mugabe, who spends a lot of time in Hong Kong. As I do not have a million taxpayers to indulge my fancies, however, I was forced to restrain myself and buy only one thing, a pair of outrageously stylish shoes from Ports. And they were on sale, too.

15. Sending Facebook updates from Hong Kong. Why don't more airports offer free wireless internet? And yes, Heathrow and Gatwick, I am looking at you.

16. That cute little boy, Brandon Walters, in the movie Australia. Watching Australia actually seems to take longer than getting to Australia, I kid you not: just when I thought, okay, it is over, it starts again! And again. Little Brandon was cute as a button, but I did not quite understand why he was telling his story in broken English. And what exactly was the movie about? Cattle droving? Aboriginal rights? Interracial adoption and marriage? Assimilation? A love story? A war story? I mean, really. One character says, through clenched teeth, Just because it is that way does not mean that it should be, and this is enough to Change Stuff. Oh Mercy!

17. X-Men Origins - Wolverine. Hugh Jackman much more convincing than he was in Australia, but really, where is the payoff in a film about indestructible mutants fighting other indestructible mutants?

18. Terence, Janine, Greg and everyone at the Sofitel on Collins. Quite the nicest hotel I have stayed in.

19. Penguin Australia. Now, I mean no disloyalty to my darling Faber, but I love Penguin. I have always loved the distinctive covers of the first Penguins. Imagine getting to Australia and finding that their Penguins have the original orange covers. And I love Orange. (And purple.) I went mad, of course. I bought 34 books, at least half of them Penguins. My Australian friends should be warned: I am going to wheedle and needle and pester you for more.

20. Australian writers. Lots of them. Everywhere. Helen Garner (for more on Helen Garner, see 9, 10 and 11 above) Morris Gleitzman. Leigh Hobbs.

21. Meeting Alice Pung, the Australian writer and lawyer ... and thinking YES! Another working lawyer who writes. Soon, we shall take over the world. Mua ha ha ha ha.

22. Picture this: I wake up in my room on the 42nd floor of the Sofitel to see the distinctive blue tennis courts of Melbourne Park below me. And I scream, The Rod Laver Arena! The Rod Laver Arena! The Rod Laver Arena! I am very sorry for whoever was my neighbour, but come on - The Rod Laver Arena!

23. My last few hours were amazing. I was thoroughly spoilt by Terence and Janine, and all because I had lost my mobile phone, and the card key to my room. They consoled me with oysters and champagne in the Sofitel Club. And I kept reciting (to myself, not out loud) my favourite poem in which oysters are the tragic heroes: It seems a shame, the Walrus said, To play them such a trick. After we've brought them out so far and made them trot so quick. The Carpenter said nothing but, The butter's spread too thick! Hee hee. I love that poem.

24. Oysters. I ate one and didn't die. I ate two and still didn't die. Three, five, six, and yep, still here. Turns out I am not allergic to them.

25. Getting home 26 hours later and finding my mobile phone. In my suitcase. Where I had packed it. Together with the card key to my room. Sigh.

Dear World, I was not born in Zimbabwe. I was born in Zambia. Also, when I was born? Zimbabwe did not exist. Thank You.

I thought I would take a whole post to correct a misleading statement that has been made about me in a number of newspapers.

I was not born in Zimbabwe.

There is the small fact that when I was born, Zimbabwe did not exist.

But more crucially, I was born in Zambia.

On the copper belt.

In Kitwe, to be precise.

I am, however, not Zambian.

Never have been, never will be.

I left the country before I could speak.

So my first language is the Karanga of my ancestors.

But the fact of where I was born is important to me.

Being a Zambia-born Zimbabwean has defined me and my relationship to the state of Zimbabwe in the same way that it has defined people like Judith Todd or Trevor Ncube, and the thousands of federation children, the thousands whose parents were born when Zimbabwe was part of the Federation, who were born in Nyasaland or Northern Rhodesia, Zimbabweans who are, in today's Zimbabwe, considered tainted by their foreign birth, and by their foreign-born parents.

I love my green and gold passport because every time I have got it, I have had to battle for it.

Simply because I was born in Zambia.

So dear world, please stop saying Zimbabwe-born writer. It is sufficient to call me Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah. Because I am a Zimbabwean, forged in the heat and dust and tempest of Room 100, the innermost circle of hell, otherwise known as the Citizenship Office at the Passport Office of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Oh, I could tell you stories about Room 100.

And maybe one day, I will.