'An Elegy for Easterly'

Petina Gappah and her debut collection of short stories 'An Elegy for Easterly' deserve a follow-up (see last Sunday's post). It really is quite a wonderful collection. The 13 stories are set (with only one exception) in Zimbabwe - the Zimbabwe of the last two generations, the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe. This would not ordinarily draw me to a book; it was in fact the personal connection of having seen Petina speak with such liveliness at a festival that made her, and her book, remain in my mind. There is a lightness of touch, despite the tough, often brutal, tragic, world she shines her light on. The way she crafts these stories is so exquisite - like being kissed by the wind or unearthing woven gossamer. The stories are full of mysteries and secrets, and there is a mishieviousness in the writing as surprises are sprung on us, or on the characters, or as we fumble around in the prose to catch up with the world we have just creaked open the door onto.

There is a profusion of sex and death, the stuff of life. A politician's widow watches on as her husband's coffin is buried empty; a maid is found drowned after being cast pregnant from the house she has served for 2 years, the best nurse-maid they ever had; on the cracked, pink lips of Rosie's bridegroom Aids is all too evident for all the wedding party to see, and it is in those lips Rosie's own fate is sealed. The people of these pages are in many ways like any other; they love and laugh, and they have as much capacity to endure suffering as inflict it. But they find themselves living in an extraordinary world, where a loaf of bread costs half a million dollars and the news is always good news, no matter what. Here we find humour and irony, as well as tragedy.

It was in these characters and in the beauty of the crafting of their stories that I found hope. There is anguish here, yes, but in pages of such fineness of touch and vision and in the characters that lift gracefully from them, I couldn't find myself fully or perpetually crushed. There must be hope, I thought.