Petina Gappah

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 speak English. I dream in it. I cannot separate my English from my Shona; I see the world with those two languages.

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.