Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
A powerful account of the London of the dispossessed.
And did he go completely mad, the author?
GG: No. And he was never a Green Bomber either. He writes in this odd sort of patois that takes a long time to get into, about living under the radar, being a parasite. It’s the London of the dispossessed – he’s a mesmerising character. It’s humorous too, an incredibly powerful and original voice. It’s about his personal choices and wider events, about his denial – he won’t acknowledge his house in Zimbabwe is being pulled down.
Do you think a lot of Zimbabwean exiles are in denial about what goes on at home?
Definitely. It’s very hard to think about it all. I think being an ex-pat from Zimbabwe might certainly send you mad. You don’t belong anywhere any more. Last year I was thinking of moving back. I was actually looking at schools. But I’ve just been again and realised I can’t. Not now. I think really that it’s especially true for white Zimbabweans that we can’t go back, because the country we miss, the country we are from doesn’t exist any more. What is so odd is that one of the things that holds us together now is Facebook. I just organised a funeral on Facebook.
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Georgina Godwin is a journalist and broadcaster now based in London. She is the founder of NicoPipe Ltd and in her home town of Harare, Zimbabwe, she was for 10 years presenter of the prime time Good Morning Show for Radio 1 of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, and the inaugural presenter of AM Zimbabwe, the first breakfast television show in the country. She is a co-founder of the Harare International Festival of the Arts, Hifa.
