Petina Gappah. Photo: supplied
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean international trade lawyer and writer whose short fiction collection An Elegy for Easterly (Faber & Faber), which tells the of the life and people in Zimbabwe, won the Guardian Best First Book Award in 2009.
She now lives in Geneva, where she provides legal aid on international trade law to developing countries.
Her debut novel, The Book of Memory (Faber & Faber), was published last year. It tells the story of an albino woman who is on death row in prison for killing the white man who raised her.
Gappah talks to Charlotte Graham ahead of her visit to New Zealand where she will speak at three events at the Auckland Writers Festival (10-15 May).
