On the Harare International Festival of the Arts

Oh to be in Harare. Every year at this time, I long to be home so that I can attend the phenomenal Harare International Festival of the Arts. As my friend Roger will agree, there really is only one word to describe it: awesome. From opera and classical music to ragga and museve, HIFA offers something to all music lovers, and from ballet to street dance, it offers something to dance lovers too, then there are the theatre and the spoken word events, and the workshops, all creating a really buzzy and happy atmosphere. I mean, look at that picture! This year, the opening act was Orff's Camina Burana, produced by La Fura dels Baus, the Spanish company that also produced the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics, in Harare, they worked with more than a hundred local singers and dancers. I am also really sorry I missed Kupenga KwaHamlet (The Madness of Hamlet), a Shona Hamlet in which two actors play all the principal parts. It sounds awesome!

And, and, and, oh and ... oh, this is awesome! Salif Keita is there! Right now! In Harare! Salif Keita! Probably playing one of my favourite songs of all time, Africa. I love this song so much that I once leapt onto the stage at the Montreaux Jazz festival and danced along with his dancers, a most hilarious spectacle, I assure you, because I cannot dance to save my son's life. If you are not in Harare, treat yourself by clicking below, and enjoy one of the best songs ever written and performed by one of the greatest musicians of all time. Awesome!

Photo: from the awesome HIFA website.

Twenty one highlights of my visit to Los Angeles

Here in no particular order, is what I loved about my recent trip to Los Angeles.

______________

1. The generosity of the LA Times: There were only eight winners, one in each category, but all writers of the 52 books nominated were honoured in a wonderful way. As Dave Eggers said when he received his award, bless the LA Times for its belief in books and in reading and for using its power for good.

2. The LA Times Festival of Books. I have never seen anything like it. 2 days. More than 500 writers. 140 000 visitors. Yep, that's 140 000 visitors, all buying books and engaging with writers. That's over 500 writers.

3. Hanging out with my girl Lisa and driving around LA in the sunshine. Venice Beach! Santa Monica! Bel Air! The Palisades!

4.Yann Martel. He talked about his books, his life, and his hilarious project of sending Canadian premier Stephen Harper a free book every month or so. I loved him. His intelligence and shining kindness. His engagement and his interest in his readers. When I grow up, I want to be Yann Martel.

5. An unforgettable two hours at the Getty, feasting on Da Vinci and Rustici, Goya and Gainsborough, Renoir and Cezanne, Turner and Sargent, Millais and Munch, Degas and Monet, Rubens and van Dyck. And my masters, my Dutch Masters, Brueghel and Steen and Franz Hals and Ferdinand Bol and Rembrandt. (I am insanely in love with the 17th century Dutch painters ... one day, when I have recovered, I will write about the disorienting shock I felt on coming face to face with Rembrandt's Nachtwacht in Amsterdam).

6. Graham Farmelo who gave the best and funniest acceptance speech ever when he won for his book The Strangest Man, a biography of the British quantum physicist Paul Dirac.

7. Hanging out with some super cool writers: Philipp Meyer who deservedly won in our category, Paul Harding, the freshly-minted Pulitzer winner who is as nice as they come, Attica Locke, a super sister doing her super thing with crime fiction, Amy Akon, the stylish lady of manners who wears evening wear as day wear and Lisa Fugard who tried to recuit me to do a panel with Ngugi for which I was too chicken!

8. Laying my hands on Ngugi's memoir.

9. The Unexpected Pleasures of Jet-leg Part I: hanging out in the hotel lounge with Aussie writer Christos Tsiolkas. If you haven't already, please do read his award-winning novel The Slap.

10. My panel chair, Alex Espinoza, and fellow panellists Marilyn Chin, Leonard Chang and Chitra Divakaruni who were totally on fire and made an hour seem like a very fun and fast five minutes.

11. The incredible David Shannon who designed the poster for the festival and whose children's book are wonderful splashes of imagination.

12. Sarah Silverman talking about her new book, Bedwetter. She is fiercely funny. Asked why she was fired from Saturday Night Live she said, "You know, I went back the other day and looked at the work I was doing and the reason they fired me is probably that I was crap at my job." Hee. She has this great idea that we should all support: sell the Vatican and feed the world. As she said, "What would Jesus do?" Well, she thought, the same Jesus who chased out the money changers from the temple would definitely be aghast at the wealth of the Vatican. Double hee.

13. The team at my hotel, these gorgeous bell hops and waitrons who are also music and art students. Their very California wake-up call: "Good day this is your wake up call. The team at the Hotel Angeleno wish you a day filled with joy."

14. The booming voice at LAX airport, a sobering reminder that America is a nation at war: "ATTENTION ARMED SERVICE PERSONNEL. Then some bla bla about a free bar with internet where they can relax with family members, followed by: THE NATION THANKS YOU AND SALUTES YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE." Then the national anthem plays and everyone stands at attention. Not.

15. The Unexpected Pleasures of Jet-lag Part II. Watching HBO at 3 in the morning, and catching Al Pacino's seven forehead wrinkles give the performance of their life in "You Don't Know Jack", the story of Jack "Dr Death" Kervokian. Mr. Pacino reminded me of someone and it was really bugging me that I couldn't remember who it was, then on my flight back, I read a People magazine in which the movie was previewed and the writer talked about Al Pacino looking like "Woody Allen in need of a good meal", and I was like bingo!

16. Pam Grier talking about her new book and her life in the movies and the day she and then boyfriend Richard Pryor put a sick horse in the backseat of her convertible and drove the poor thing on the freeway to the vet ... "And all people could see where these two black people with a horse in the back seat of the car," said Pam. She had some great stories about being offered the role of Jackie Brown by Quentin Tarantino and about falling off a stallion in Rome and landing at the feet of Federico Fellini. What a star!

17. The food. Brioche French toast with maple syrup and bacon. Fluffy blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and sausages. Spicy California rolls. Spicy tuna rolls. Blue cheese hamburgers. Carrot cake with icing. I feel hungry just writing this.

18. The Unexpected Pleasures of Jet-lag Part III. Six, that's six, back to back episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I don't watch TV regularly, you see, so this was a real treat. If I was into cars, which I am not, I would say the Law and Order franchise is like a series of elegant Jaguars, while the entire CSI franchise is like those yellow Lamborghini cars with the doors that open up, and you think, well it does what it says on the box, but why is the freaking door opening up? And who buys a yellow car??

19. Booths, booths and more booths. The book festival really was a microcosm of America in all its lunatic diversity. From this booth, the Communist Party of America promises revolution. From that one, Jews for Jesus offer salvation. Over there, the Scientologists promise some kind of space travel. Just two hundred metres away is a cheeky riposte to the Scientologists: a booth dedicated to the "Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard". Oh snap! And if material and not spiritual comfort is what you wanted, there was more than enough book-related stuff to buy. I fell in love with a little outfit called Little Bookwormz that makes t-shirts "for the cultured kid". See their wares here.

20. How fitting was it that I bought my copy of the latest issue of Granta, the Sex issue, in LA?

21. The Unexpected Pleasures of Jet-lag, Part IV. American adverts for health products. My goodness, President Obama was right to make healthcare an absolute first term priority! You know how Nicholas I of Russia described the Ottoman empire as the Sick Man of Europe? He hadn't been to America, which clearly has the sickest men and women of all time. Every other advert is for one drug or another. And they all seem to have side effects like heartburn and dizziness and diarrhoea and constipation and nausea and one even had this side effect :"it can lead to thoughts of suicide". Man, if that is the cure, I would sure hate to have the disease! And is nothing sacred any more? "I like to do all sorts of things with my friends," chirped one chirpy lassie, "Even on an over-active bladder. So I take care with Vesicare". Okaaaayyy!!! You go girl, with your over-active bladder, you!

Yann Martel and Dave Eggers signing books in Los Angeles

I am back from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I have lots to tell you about the festival and awards ceremony, but I need to write it first and it is going to be a long one ... In the meantime, enjoy this great picture of Yann Martel and Dave Eggers sitting back to back and signing their books for readers.

Los Angeles, here I come!

I am off to Los Angeles tomorrow, for the LA Times Book Awards ceremony and the LA Times Festival of Books. I will report all on my return next Tuesday. I am so looking forward to this ... I have never been to LA before, and the programme looks amazing. Most of all, I am looking forward to hanging with my girl Lisa who has hired a convertible for us to swing in some serious style. We'll be like Thelma and Louise, only in LA and not headed towards Mexico. And there will be no driving off cliffs at the end. And the speakers will be blaring California Love, the anthem of my misspent youth. Shake it baby.

Introducing "Les racines déchirées", the French version of "An Elegy for Easterly"

Here is the French version of "An Elegy for Easterly". It is called "Les racines déchirées", which translates to Torn Roots. It is out on 22 April 2010, published by Plon.

I love that cover.

So very elegant, so very French.

And me, so very happy.

A message for Rhodesians, Rhodesia-nostalgists and other When-Wes ... and for Zanu's supporters too

I caused something of a storm when I wrote in the Guardian last week about four key achievements of Zimbabwe: the end of white minority rule, the legal emancipation of black women (who were considered perpetual minors under the African customary law uniformly applied to them in Rhodesia), the investment in education resulting in an adult literacy rate of 92%, and national cohesion. As you will see if you read the comments on my piece, my views were roundly condemned, and I was dismissed as a Mugabe apologist and an accomplice to human rights abusers.


Yes, really.


The Mugabe apologists on the other hand, said to me, Welcome sister, now you know what we have been going through.

In my latest Sunday Times column, which was published yesterday, and which, unfortunately is not available online, I examined the main policies that sought to keep blacks as second class citizens in Rhodesia and why it was necessary to fight that system. I got a number of emails in which some Rhodesians told me but Petina, blacks were happy in Rhodesia, no one was starving and there were jobs for everyone. One man wrote to say his wife worked for a black manager, it was all about application, and if you applied yourself you got somewhere. Over on Facebook, a man who shall remain unnamed tried to convince me that blacks were making progress and that qualified voting was A Good Thing.


Here is my message for all the Rhodies and When-wes out there: just because I am opposed to Zanu PF does not mean I think independence was a waste. I would sooner take up arms again than go back to Rhodesia. Happily, for all us, Rhodesia is where it deserves to be, well and truly in the past, deader than the ten deadest dead things you can imagine, and that includes the dodo ... The dinosaur too.


As for my friends at Shake Shake house ... thank you for the open arms, I know you could do with a few more willing members but no thanks. I am not your girl. The Zimbabwe I want is not Rhodesia, but nor is it your Zimbabwe. It is really this simple: we deserve and can do better.

The National Archives turns 75 and celebrates Zimbabwe in photographs

My love affair with The Zimbo Jam grows and grows. Today the Jam reports on an exhibition of 100 years of photographs from the National Archives, which turns 75 this year. The National Archives, I think I have already said, is my favourite place in Zimbabwe. It is where I write when I am in Zim. When I am not writing, I love to look at the photographs and read through the old newspapers. I also love to go and stand and stare at one of the most valuable artefacts in there: the Union flag that Rhodes and the Pioneer column raised over Cecil Square in 1890. Zimbabweans will remember the Chinx Chingaira song: Vasvika muHarare, vakasimudza mureza wavo, wemaBhiritishi, Yuniyeni Jeki. Well, that flag is alive and well and living under a glass cabinet at the archives. I love historical objects because they connect you directly to the past: think of the women who stitched this fabric together, the men who marched with it, the rain that fell on it, those women, those men, are dead and gone, but there it is, worn and faded blue and red, stitches coming apart but still there.

The Rudd Concession signed by Lobengula in 1888 should also be there. Unfortunately, an official of the British South Africa Company charged with its reframing apparently left the original Rudd Concession in a London black cab and it was never recovered. I kid you not. At least I hope I kid you, this is one of the many bits of information in my head whose source I can't trace ... If anyone knows different, please holler! Should you be in Harare and Bulawayo, please do go along. A copy of the photograph above, Bulawayo's Market Square in 1893, hangs on one of my walls in Geneva. Another photograph that I love, the one below, is of Dr. Vida Mungwira, the first black woman to train to be a doctor in Rhodesia. She is photographed with her mother on her return from her studies in Bristol.

The photography exhibition was funded by Spain's Embassy to Zimbabwe. When I was in Zim in March, I had the privilege of meeting the Spanish Ambassador, Pilar Fuertes Ferragut, a smart and stylish woman who is not only passionate about art in Zimbabwe, but also puts her much needed money where her mouth is. Thank you Spain!

"An Elegy for Easterly" on the Orwell Book Prize shortlist

"What I have most wanted to do ... is to make political writing into an art." George Orwell.

I am thrilled and delighted to share the news that An Elegy for Easterly has been shortlisted for the Orwell Book Prize. It was on an incredible long list that included four books that I loved last year: What Price Liberty? by Ben Wilson, A Swamp Full of Dollars by Michael Peel, Harare North by Brian Chikwava, and It's Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong. Michela made the shortlist, and it is a great honour to be on it with her and with the other writers whose books I have not yet read but will hunt down forthwith: Christopher De Bellaigue shortlisted for Rebel Land: Among Turkey's Forgotten Peoples; Andrea Gillies for Keeper; Kenan Malik for From Fatwa to Jihad and John Kampfner for Freedom for Sale.

Sometimes things come at exactly the right time ... this has certainly come at the right time for me, exactly one year after my book was published, and at a point where I am at something of a cross roads about my writing and its future direction.

I am also pleased for my favourite newspaper, the Guardian because two of its journalists, Amelia Gentleman and Paul Lewis, have been recognised on the Orwell journalism shortlist. And I love the blogs that have been shortlisted too, particularly the wonderful Madam Miaow and the highly entertaining Laurie Penny, for her blog Penny Red, a self-described "shouty" socialist feminist who reminds me of me when I was at university.

Tonight I am going to bed with Orwell's Decline of the English Murder, a wonderful essay which I can't read enough!

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Bob Marley and the Wailers!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, Bob Marley and the Wailers!" These, if you will believe it, were the first words spoke in independent Zimbabwe, moments after Prince Charles lowered the Union flag. To the born-frees out there like my brother Uchi: an explanation. The reason the Union flag was lowered by Prince Charles is not, as the legend now goes, because we fought for liberation from the Breeteesh. Rather, we fought for liberation from Ian Smith's white minority rule. After the Lancaster House conference that saw a negotiated settlement that ended the war and established a constitution for the new country, elections were called. In the four months between Lancaster House and the election, Rhodesia became a British colony again, thus reversing Smith's 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The green and the white Rhodesian flag was lowered and replaced by the Union flag which was then lowered by Prince Charles at midnight on 17 April 1980.

I hope you enjoy the video below, this one goes to the boys and girls and men and women vakafira nyika yedu, who gave up their lives in the struggle Zimbabwe. And happy independence, dearest, most precious, broken Zimbabwe.

A treat for you: my girl Chiwoniso Maraire performing with Kris Kristoffersen

Here for you, by way of penance because I have been a bad bad blogger lately, and am likely to be for the next week or so, is a brilliant video of my girl Chiwoniso Maraire performing in Oslo with Kris Kristoffersen. Enjoy. And keep the tissues close by. Sniffle.

An Easter Message for Joseph Ratzinger, Bishop of Rome

Dear Pope,

Do you remember me in September 1988, in my blue uniform dress, singing Chiedza Chenyika, the special song that was composed to welcome you to Zimbabwe on your very first papal visit, the first by any living Pope? And dead one too! Oh wait, that wasn't you, that was the other Pope, the nice one who liked shoes by Berluti, bootmaker since 1895, also, incidentally, the favourite cobbler of fervent Catholic Jean-Bédel Bokassa, known fondly as His Imperial Majesty Bokassa the First, Emperor of Central Africa, or as the Thirteenth Apostle, depending on the time of day.

Anyhoo, Pope John Paul stepped his Berluti-shod feet on Zimsoil and it took almost an hour for Mass to start because the rigid Catholic hierarchical hogwash combined with the rigidity of Shona kupira claptrap meant that the most junior priest had to ask the next senior priest to ask the next senior priest to ask the next junior bishop to ask the most senior archbishop to ask the Pope to say mass for the assembled faithful and his answer had to be relayed in the same way and then the Pope said mass at the showgrounds and women ululated and danced and children sang and everyone smiled even though only the really special hand-picked people like our then newly-minted Executive President, Robert Gabriel Mugabe and the First First Lady got to receive their wafer directly from the Pope at communion.

I was in that crowd not because my parents had had me baptised a Catholic at birth but because I voluntarity became one at my Catholic boarding school, mainly, I must confess, dear Pope, to taste the wafer, which as it turns out, tastes of nothing at all, thus becoming A Great Big Metaphor for Life. At one point I considered becoming a nun, and if I am to be honest here too, Pope, the inducement was less the idea of being the Bride of Christ than the smell of melted cheese and lovely garlicky smells coming from the Convent.

I fell in love with the liturgy and the message and I was confirmed by Father Mashonganyika (hi Father M, if you are reading this!) Then I went to St Iggs where I started to disagree with many positions that the Church adopted ... I had nothing at all against Jesus, he seemed like an alright kind of dude, though he really would be a drag to hang out with (all that piousness) but it seemed to me that the problem with Catholicism was too much human involvement in what was supposed to be a spiritual relationship. I thought the answer was to take out all the hectoring by the men in skirts, and then I realised that if you actually took out the human involvement, you would have no Church because that is the point of the Church - to set rules and regulations that have very little to do with seeking closeness to God. So I had my own Martin Luther moment at age 17 but instead of nailing ninety nine theses to any door, I became a Buddhist.

Then I left school and the only things I left behind, apart from the legend of my pond-leaping and bounds-breaking exploits (ha!), were my confirmation and baptism certificates in the secretary's office at St Ignatius. I imagine they are still there, gathering dust in some old box.

I would like to request, dear Pope, that you send a team to Zimbabwe to recover those certificates.

While you are there, you might also want to look into the many many abuses of the Church against people in Zimbabwe and in other African countries. Martin Kimani has written here about the complicity of church officials in the genocide in Rwanda, but you know, genocide is so old hat, it is not particularly au courant, so let's stick with the theme of the day shall we?

You will find, Pope, if your team digs deep enough, many many examples of sexual, what is the word you use ... sins ... you will find many sexual sins committed by your priests with children and women across the continent. You will be particularly cheered, I know, to find that while a number of these sins are of the distressful man to boy variety, a number of your clergy have scorned the sin of homosexuality, so repugnant to you, and have instead, chosen to commit sins with young girls. Being a proponent of the doctrine that all acts of sexual intercourse are to be open to new life, it will, I am sure, cheer you to find that many of your priests have enthusiastically embraced this particular aspect of Church teaching and have thus fathered children who would be considered, under your rules, to be, what's the word now, oh yes, bastards.

You will also, I hope, find my certificates during your investigations. And when you do find them, may I suggest that the most appropriate resting place for them would be up your most recent Urbi et Orbi?

Happy Easter!

Petina

Why my son is reading all sorts of dangerous books for kids

In his latest essay collection, The Education of A British-Protected Child, Chinua Achebe says that he started writing children's stories because he realised that the stories his children were reading were "dangerous". I revere Achebe as much as the next person, but I must confess that I felt a little sorry for the (then) Achebe kids when I read this, just as I feel sorry for all those kids who grew up in the 60s and 70s in England who had their Richmal Cromptons and Enid Blytons ripped from their hands because these books were not considered "socially relevant", just as I feel sorry for the kids whose very affluent Christian parents at a very famous church in Zimbabwe have been instructed by their pastor not to let them read the Harry Potter books because they are "Satanic".

I am happy that my parents were not particularly worried about all this social relevance and that they were not worried that I did not see my little African self reflected in what I read. I mean, I read Valley of the Dolls and Native Son at the age of 11! Okay, I did have a couple of nightmares about being burnt in the fireplace like Mary ... At the age of 9, I was hunting German spies with the Lone Pine Club in Yorkshire, I was a member of William Brown's Outlaws and howled in mirth at the tricks we played on Cook and Clara, I was in the Secret Seven and Famous Five, I was on a convict ship going to Autralia, I was dancing at Sadlers Wells, I was playing lacrosse high on the Cornish cliffs ... I devoured stories and books that were utterly and completely socially irrelevant to my condition as an African child. The consequence was that my world grew and grew and grew. The books that were supposed to be relevant, about counting goats and good children who listened to their fathers and helped to count the goats had zero interest for me. Any book with any kind of message at the end was as kryptonite to Superman, it killed any interest I might have had in reading it. The only children's books by an African writer that I loved, loved and read and reread were Ugandan Barbara Kimenye's Moses books, which frankly, are the best African children's stories ever written. I could not get enough of Moses and King-Kong who seemed to do nothing but think of food and smoke and make mischief at Mukibi's School for the Sons of African Gentlemen ... The books were full of fun and free of moral ... I learned later that, surprise surprise, Kimenye's books were considered by some Kenyan parents to be "socially irrelevant" and were consequently "frowned upon"!

I have now bought all the William books for Kush, he is already addicted to Kipling's Just so stories and to The Jungle Book, my friend Victoria hunted down every Moses book she could find for me in Nairobi, and along with the Narnia books and all the Tin-Tin and Barbar books that Geneva can throw up, my son is well on his way to Some Seriously Dangerous Reading. When he is grown up and becomes a critical theorist, he can decipher the ChristianSupremacistRacistColonialistImperialist imagery and language in these texts, but for now, he is a kid who loves his stories and books, and that's more than enough for me.

In case you were wondering, the children's book cover above is from the Huffington Post's hilarious slideshow of the "creepiest" children's books ever published. Needless to say, many of them are Extremely Socially Relevant. Read it and weep. With laughter.