Petina Gappah

There's a Shona saying: 'chakafukidza dzimba matenga' - 'What covers the home is the roof,' or 'Every home has its secrets.'

I'm not even sure that I want to go back... The Zimbabwe that I really loved, the Zimbabwe that I grew up in, just isn't there anymore, and I'm not sure about the country that has replaced it.

There are some people who are happy to be African writers. They are pan-Africanists. I'm not a pan-Africanist. I think African countries have a lot in common. But we are also very different.

All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.

I always dreamed of writing in an orchestral context. But when you finish a piece, you want to hear it. So we played everything with Phish.

They said I couldn't play anything but an English boy. I knew I could. So I went to New York.