Chikwavas love-hate history

As part of the Homes in Zimbabwe annual lecture you and Lauren St John will be speaking on the theme, The Past is Another Country. Could you briefly unpack that for us?

The event, which Im honoured to be part of, aims to raise funds for charity. Although the proceeds of the event will probably be humble, hopefully it will be a symbolic gesture that will be greater than what it brings into the charity tin.

How would you classify your relationship with your home country?

Classification has never been my strongest trait; at school I once put a teacher in the class of mammalian reptiles! What I can say is that the nature of my relationship with Zimbabwe is of a love-hate variety I love it for innumerable things, but loathe it for the way it has ceased to care about the plight of its poor and less fortunate.

How closely do you relate to the main character in your novel Harare North?

While promoting the book over the past year I encountered that question again and again, which made rue how I had missed a trick if only I had said this was a memoir, perhaps the books would have sold in bucket loads, like Ishmael Beahs ***A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

In your opinion, how badly has the brain drain in Zimbabwe impacted the cultural scene?

There is no doubt that if the Zimbabwean creatives who left the country were still at home, the cultural scene would be richer. But that does not mean that little is happening right now. As you know, crisis can stimulate inspiration, which explains the emergence of new talent in theatre, music and writing. Who for instance would have thought the Book Cafs African Synergy partnership would be sustainable, yet it now facilitates the export of new Zimbabwean talent to South Africa and Mozambique while hosting young artists from those countries.

You have been quoted as saying that your educational background made a great difference to your experience as a Zimbabwean in a foreign land, how was this so?

If you are in London and can read the tube map, you can get where you want to with ease. If you cant, Lord have mercy. In other words, you are better equipped to navigate the cultural and social landscape of a foreign place if you did not spend your educational years sniping teachers with a catapult.

What advice would you give those who are trying to establish a new life away from home?

To first read Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives

How important a tool do you feel writing/art is in addressing issues of social injustice?

Personally I think it is important, just like music or theatre is. Most writers or musicians are ordinary members of society and as such are better positioned to be in touch with the ordinary people than anyone high up there in authority. The language and concerns of the common people are more likely come out better through a piece of music, poetry or fiction than they do through a party political manifesto.

Are you working on anything at the moment?

I think I am, though Im not sure what it is. All a bit jumbled up at the moment.