The TWAG quote of the week is back, thanks to His Excellency, Comrade RG Mugabe, President and Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief ...

This week's TWAG Quote of the Week comes from the Patriarch himself. Unfortunately, the Blogger title space is unable to accommodate the full title of my President, which is "His Excellency, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, President and Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces." Newsreaders read this title every night. And they do it with a straight face too!!

In this week's quote, His Excellency, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, President and Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces talked about the burial of former Higher Education Minister, David Karimanzira, who died this week. Incidentally, that name will always be associated with my misspent youth at the University of Zimbabwe. No student demonstration was complete without running away from tear gas and singing insulting songs about him, or to be more accurate, about his mother's eyes.

'Meso amai vako, David!' we sang. 'Hee, David! Meso amai vako David, hee David!' In English this means, 'Your mother's eyes, David! Hee David! Your mother's eyes, David! Hee David!'

What can I say? You had to be there.

Anyhoo, this week's TWAG quote is also in Shona, but I am not even going to translate it because all the wit of His Excellency, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, President and Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces would be totally lost if I did.

And here it is:

Tichavaviga kuchikomoko, kunzvimbo yakakosha nekuti mabasa avo tinoaziva tese. Kana tichiendesa munhu ikoko tinotarisa vanhuvanorwira kuchengetedzwa kwenyika. Kune vamwe vakati toda kuendesawo vedu ikoko, asi takati kwete. Zvikomo zvakazara munyika muno. Ngavatsvagewo chavo chikomo vavigane ikoko.

Icho!!!

But zvisinei, rest in peace, David Karimanzira. There is one more angel in heaven, and one more tear in my eye. And all the things that you stood for, like peace and democracy will never die! And eternal blessings upon your mother's eyes.

On Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor died yesterday. I adored her. Her talent was unmistakable, her beauty incandescent (those eyes, those eyes) and she was so very much herself, totally unafraid to be herself, even as the world’s lens was trained on her life. Here are three wonderful quotes about her: one from her twice ex-husband Richard Burton, one from her son Michael Wilding, and one from the legend herself.

If there is a an after-world, I want to think she is laughing it up with the many good buddies that have gone before, among them Montgomery Clift, Michael Jackson, and of course, Richard Burton.

Go well, Liz. You are and always will be an absolute star!

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Richard Burton on Liz Taylor:

She was so extraordinarily beautiful that I nearly laughed out loud. Her body was a true miracle of construction and the work of an engineer of genius. It needed nothing, except itself. It was true art, I thought, executed in terms of itself. It was smitten by its own passion. I used to think things like that.

She was unquestionably gorgeous. I can think of no other word to describe a combination of plentitude, frugality, abundance, tightness. She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much.

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Liz Taylor on her most effective diet trick:

Certainly without a sense of humor I would never have used one of my most effective diet tricks. Someone told me that Debbie Reynolds kept a photograph of me taken during my fattest period on her refrigerator door. She said it reminded her of what could happen if she charged into the icebox. During the initial stage of my diet I thought, well, if it works for Debbie, maybe it will work for me. I stuck a picture of myself at my worst on the refrigerator, and every time I went into the kitchen, there was my corpulent self reminding me of what would happen if I broke my diet. That sight was an excellent deterrent to bingeing. If you think a picture of me as Miss Lard will inspire you, go ahead and put it on your refrigerator, I have no objection. Certainly there are enough photos for you to choose from. I didn't exactly skulk about in those days, and even if I had tried to avoid the press, they would have found me.

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Michael Wilding on his mother:

My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love. Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world. Her remarkable body of work in film, her ongoing success as a businesswoman, and her brave and relentless advocacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, all make us all incredibly proud of what she accomplished. We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts.

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Richard Burton and Liz’s quotes come from the spectacular blog: peculiarbeauty.blogspot.com and Michael Wilding's is courtesy of the Huffington Post. The photo is from the Guardian.

In which I rouse the wrath of one Peter Moyo and irritate him with my "crass, trite and unauthentic" book

I wrote a few weeks ago that I was doing a massive piece on education in Zimbabwe. I have completed the fieldwork potion of my project and am now writing the essay. I am immensely excited by this. The essay was commissioned by Writers Inc, a group that includes writers I love like Zadie Smith, Rachel Holmes and Hari Kunzru. They invited me to take any angle I chose and after grappling with different approaches, I was hit by a flash of inspiration: to write about my old schools, a then and now perspective, examining how they were when I was a pupil and how they are now, and asking the question, what would be the fate of a child like me, a child from a modest background, a child whose parents could not afford to spend a tonne of money on education, what is the fate of such a child in today's Zimbabwe?

Scrolling through my unmoderated comments last night, I came across one signed "Peter Moyo". Mr. Moyo is most definitely not a fan. He was particularly irritated by the education project, irritated without even knowing what I was writing about, and told me clearly that I was not qualified to write about education in Zimbabwe. Peter Moyo will be reassured to now that I am writing about how I was educated, unless of course he believes that I am not authorised, entitled or qualified to write about my own schools!

And as for my book, I am sorry indeed that Peter Moyo did not like it. On the bright side, you can't like everything. And you know, Peter Moyo, nothing stops you from writing your own "authentic" book on Zim that is not "crass" or "trite". And you see, I have not only posted your comment, I have devoted a whole blog post to it, so we can at least agree that I am not a "fraud".

And you will, no doubt, be cheered to know that I have been living in Harare for 7 months now, having moved back in September, no doubt this makes me more authentic!

And it is Dr. Gappah to you.

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"I am doing a massive piece on education in Zimbabwe"

Ms Gappah, given that you have been out of the country for several years and are not an educationalist by profession, can I ask what qualifies you to presume to know nearly enough about this complex subject to write an authoratative piece about it? Indeed, I ask because you seem to feel nowadays that you are an authority on just about everything.

I wonder whether you are "getting too big for your boots"? Just because you are a writer does not make you an expert an anything and everything. You seem to think you are. My advice: stick with what you know, which appears, at this stage, to be the law and Switzerland.

We Zimbabweans are not hoodwinked -everyone who lives here and has actually suffered the pain this government has inflicted on us over the past decade read right through your short story collection. You may buy sympathy with Europeans who don't know about Zimbabwe but think they do through your writing, but those of us who have experienced it (and of course living in tidy Switzerland means you are NOT one of us) realised right away that your stories were crass, trite and totally unauthentic.

So I suggest you do some soul searching before proclaiming you are the voice of this country - trust me, we all know you are NOT.

And of course, seeing as you reserve the right to "approve" all comments means that you will delete this remark without ever daring to post it on your blog. So much for democracy and freedom of speech. I dare you to post it - let people say I'm either right ot wrong! If you don't post it, I'll know for sure what a fraud you are.

In Japan, the sun will rise again

My heart and thoughts are currently with all my friends in Japan, the people at my publishing house Shinshocha, the amazing journalists I talked to from Japan Broadcasting Corporation, all the trade government officials I worked with in Geneva, and the people of Japan. The sun will rise again. Because in Japan, the sun always rises.