HARARE - Zimbabwean writer, Petina Gappah, has made it to the short list of the Orwell Prize for Literature with her book ***An Elegy for Easterly, published by Faber in this month.Petina is on the list with six other acclaimed writers who include Christopher De Bellaigues Rebel Land: Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples published by Bloomsbury and Andrea Gillies Keeper. Her book is the only fiction title on the list.
The winner- to be announced on 19 May- will walk away with a prize of 3,000 in each of three categories: books, blogging and journalism. An Elegy for Easterly, a collection of 13 stories, has already received rave reviews from the international media.
It portrays the Zimbabwean peoples trouble under President Robert Mugabe with issues like inflation, cholera outbreaks, and the Aids epidemic being brought up.
Gappahs characters in the book are subject to the politics of the day like the insurance salesman turned trillion-dollar black market trader in Midnight at the Hotel California.
Gappah is based in Geneva and her short fiction and essays have been published in eight countries. The Orwell Prize is awarded annually to journalists and authors who take political writing beyond just routine analyses and opinions and into the realm of an art form.
The list includes other six writers: Christopher De Bellaigue, Rebel Land: Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples (Bloomsbury), Andrea Gillies, Keeper (Short Books),
John Kampfner, Freedom For Sale: How We Made Money and Lost Our Liberty (Simon & Schuster), Kenan Malik, From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy (Atlantic Books), Michela Wrong, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower (Fourth Estate).
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