Petina Gappah is an award-winning and widely translated Zimbabwean writer. She is the author of two novels --- OUT OF DARKNESS, SHINING LIGHT and THE BOOK OF MEMORY --- The Book of Memory, and two short story collections: ROTTEN ROW and AN ELEGY FOR EASTERLY. Her work has also been published in, among others, The New Yorker, Der Spiegel, The Financial Times and the Africa Report. For many years, Petina worked as an international trade lawyer at the highest levels of diplomacy in Geneva where she advised more than 70 developing countries from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America on trade law and policy.  Petina has also been a DAAD Writing Fellow in Berlin, an Open Society Fellow and a Livingstone Scholar at Cambridge University.  She has law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University in Austria, and the University of Zimbabwe. She currently lives in Harare.

Books by Petina Gappah

Out of Darkness, Shining Light

by Petina Gappah - Fiction, Historical Fiction

“This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land.” So begins Petina Gappah's novel of exploration and adventure in 19th-century Africa --- the captivating story of the loyal men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone's body, his papers and maps, 1,500 miles across the continent of Africa, so his remains could be returned home to England and his work preserved there. Narrated by Halima, the doctor's sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, a rigidly pious freed slave, this is a story that encompasses all of the hypocrisy of slavery and colonization, while celebrating resilience, loyalty and love.

An Elegy for Easterly: Stories

by Petina Gappah