Title: An Elergy for Easterly Author: Petina Gappah London, Faber and Faber Distributed in Zimbabwe by Weaver Press ISBN: 978 0 571 24693 9 Reviewer: Percy Zvomuya

The publication of Petina Gappah’s An Elergy for Easterly (Faber and Faber) and John Eppel’s Absent: The English Teacher (Jacana and Weaver Press) means that the fiction games in Zimbabwe have begun in earnest.

For years it seemed that Zimbabwe fiction writers lay helpless, cofounded by the enormity of crisis in their homeland. The tomes upon tomes that came out were largely non-fiction, written mostly by foreign journalists.

Christina Lamb wrote about the fate of specific victims: a farmer ad his domestic worker; British journalist Martin Meredith, making extensive use of the wonder that is called the internet, also put out a book on how Zimbabwe went down; and so did Heidi Holland, whose biography of Robert Mugabe is much acclaimed.

Zimbabwean responses were minuscule. The more significant came from nationalists Edgar Tekere who produced a biography; journalist Geoff Nyarota wrote his memories; Geoff Hill, already looking ahead, wrote about what needs to be done to get Zimbabwe working again; Judith Todd, using letters, diaries and other documents wrote an insightful book about how Zimbabwe was reduced to a shell of its former proud self.

Beside Gappah and Eppel, Brian Chikwava’s Harare North and Nyaradzo Mutizira’s The Chimurenga Protocol, were also recently published. I have also started reading architect Daniel Mandishona’s The Sound of Dreams, still in manuscript form, which will be launched at the Cape Town Book Fair.

Gappah’s collection of 13 short stories has been covered quite extensively in the western media. Perhaps this is because of the topicality of Zimbabwe as a post colony that got it horribly wrong. At the launch of her book in Johannesburg, Petina admitted that the west’s reaction to her work is mostly informed by how it views Mugabe and Zimbabwe.

I found most interesting the stories that had nothing to do with Zimbabwe’s politics. The Annexe Shuffle, about a mentally ill law student, is easily the best. Although its tone is dispassionate, its voice is sympathetic. The narrator is not pretentious, and is to be commended for her refusal to resort to easy solutions.

The story I disliked the most is At the Sound of the Last Post, about the widow of a former minister about to be buried at the Heroes’ Acre, the country’s national shrine. The choice of voice is rather unfortunate – its easy going accents not appropriate for such a subject. Perhaps the main problem with the story is its lack of distance from the actual events. Because it’s so close to the events the author is writing about, it feels like lazy political commentary and one feels obliged to criticize it not as fiction but as journalese.

The narrator described a minister’s suicide after the infamous Willowgate Scandal, a car scam involving ministers, as a “supremely self-indulgent act”. Maurice Nyagumbo, one of the more principled men in a Zanu PF that was increasingly materialistic committed suicide after being implicated in the scam.

Suicide is never easy, the narrator in Graham Green’s book The Comedians said it was “the clear headed act of a mathematician, (for) the suicide has judged by the laws of chance – many odds against one that to live would be more miserable than to die”.

Then there are the stale jokes. The one about the disappeared pearly gates in heaven and another about the country itself: “before the president was elected the Zimbabwe Ruins were prehistoric monuments in Masvingo Province. Now the Zimbabwe Ruins extends to the whole country”.

I felt the author is at her strongest when writing about the lives of individuals. This is apparent in stories such as Something Nice from London and Aunt Juliana’s Indian (perhaps a nod here to Chimurenga 14: Everyone has their Indian). Here the author is not regurgitating urban legends or forcing her opinions down the throats of her characters. These stories are true to life with no stereotyping, these are real people faced with real problems.

At her best in Switzerland based Gappah has a unique vernacular voice, unearthing the pains and sorrows of the ordinary. In many ways she can’t be from anywhere but Zimbabwe.

· (Review originally done for the Mail & Guardian)