Petina Gappah

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

For the first years of my life, I went to school in Rhodesia. My memory of living in the townships is that they were actually really happy places.

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.

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

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.

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