Petina Gappah

“Engrossing, beautiful, and deeply imaginative, Out of Darkness, Shining Light is a novel that lends voice to those who appeared only as footnotes in history, yet whose final, brave act of loyalty and respect changed the course of it. An incredible and important book by a masterful writer.” ​—Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing “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 powerful novel of exploration and adventure in nineteenth-century Africa—the captivating story of the loyal men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone's body, his papers and maps, fifteen hundred 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—the hypocrisy at the core of the human heart—while celebrating resilience, loyalty, and love.

A Novel

Out of Darkness, Shining Light

Memory is an albino woman languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she has been convicted of murder. As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. As her story unfolds, Memory reveals that she has been tried and convicted for the murder of Lloyd Hendricks, her adopted father. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers? InThe Book of Memory, Petina Gappah has created a uniquely slippery narrator: forthright, acerbically funny, and with a complicated relationship to the truth. Moving between the townships of the poor and the suburbs of the rich, and between the past and the present, Gappah weaves a compelling tale of love, obsession, the relentlessness of fate, and the treachery of memory.

The Book of Memory

A woman in a township in Zimbabwe is surrounded by throngs of dusty children but longs for a baby of her own; an old man finds that his new job making coffins at No Matter Funeral Parlor brings unexpected riches; a politician’s widow stands quietly by at her husband’s funeral, watching his colleagues bury an empty casket. Petina Gappah’s characters may have ordinary hopes and dreams, but they are living in a world where a loaf of bread costs half a million dollars, where wives can’t trust even their husbands for fear of AIDS, and where people know exactly what will be printed in the one and only daily newspaper because the news is always, always good. In her spirited debut collection, the Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah brings us the resilience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe’s regime. She takes us across the city of Harare, from the townships beset by power cuts to the manicured lawns of privilege and corruption, where wealthy husbands keep their first wives in the “big houses” while their unofficial second wives wait in the “small houses,” hoping for a promotion. Despite their circumstances, the characters in An Elegy for Easterly are more than victims—they are all too human, with as much capacity to inflict pain as to endure it. They struggle with the larger issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for something to anchor them to life.

Stories

An Elegy for Easterly

The government has cleaned up Harare for the Queen of England's visit. 'The townships are too full of people, they said, gather them up and put them in the places the Queen will not see.' Four waves of people have settled on Easterly Farm since then, living on the margins in homes that will soon be destroyed. Among them is Martha Mupengo. She has lost her wits, and gained a pregnancy. Who could be the baby's father, and what fate awaits mothers and children in this temporary, poverty-stricken town?

Elegy for Easterly

In her accomplished new story collection, Petina Gappah crosses the barriers of class, race, gender and sexual politics in Zimbabwe to explore the causes and effects of crime, and to meditate on the nature of justice. Rotten Row represents a leap in artistry and achievement from the award-winning author of An Elegy for Easterly and The Book of Memory. With compassion and humour, Petina Gappah paints portraits of lives aching for meaning to produce a moving and universal tableau.

Rotten Row

The story that you have asked me to tell you does not begin with the pitiful ugliness of Lloyd’s death. It begins on a long-ago day in August when the sun seared my blistered face and I was nine years old and my father and mother sold me to a strange man. Memory, the narrator of Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory, is an albino woman languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, after being sentenced for murder. As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. The death penalty is a mandatory sentence for murder, and Memory is, both literally and metaphorically, writing for her life. As her story unfolds, Memory reveals that she has been tried and convicted for the murder of Lloyd Hendricks, her adopted father. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers? Moving between the townships of the poor and the suburbs of the rich, and between past and present, the 2009 Guardian First Book Award–winning writer Petina Gappah weaves a compelling tale of love, obsession, the relentlessness of fate, and the treachery of memory.

Pimeydestä loistaa valo

Im Herzen des Goldenen Dreiecks

Det här är en historia om att inte passa in. Det är historien om Memory: en ung kvinna som sitter på death row i kvinnofängelset i Zimbabwes huvudstad Harare. Memory sticker ut bland sina medfångar. Hon är bildad och privilegierad, och hon är albino. Hon är också den enda av fångarna som är dömd för mord – mordet på Lloyd Hendricks, den vite man som tagit hand om Memory sedan hon var liten. Medan Memory väntar på sitt straff skriver hon ner sin historia, i ett försök att få fallet omprövat. Hur dog egentligen Lloyd? Hur kom det sig att Memory flyttade in hos honom? Är det sant att hennes fattiga föräldrar sålde henne? Kan man lita på sina minnen? Memorys vittnesmål formar en hypnotiserande berättelse om öde, identitet, klass, ras och kön i ett land präglat av brutala kontraster. Översättare: Helena Hansson

Memorys bok

A woman in a township in Zimbabwe is surrounded by throngs of dusty children but longs for a baby of her own; an old man finds that his new job making coffins at No Matter Funeral Parlor brings unexpected riches; a politician's widow stands quietly by at her husband's funeral, watching his colleagues bury an empty casket. Petina Gappah's characters may have ordinary hopes and dreams, but they are living in a world where a loaf of bread costs half a million dollars, where wives can't trust even their husbands for fear of AIDS, and where people know exactly what will be printed in the one and only daily newspaper because the news is always, always good. In her spirited debut collection, the Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah brings us the resilience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe's regime. She takes us across the city of Harare, from the townships beset by power cuts to the manicured lawns of privilege and corruption, where wealthy husbands keep their first wives in the "big houses" while their unofficial second wives wait in the "small houses," hoping for a promotion. Despite their circumstances, the characters in An Elegy for Easterly are more than victims—they are all too human, with as much capacity to inflict pain as to endure it. They struggle with the larger issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for something to anchor them to life.

A debut collection by a Zimbabwean international trade lawyer is set in a world under the regime of Robert Mugabe where privilege and corruption shape the boundaries of everyday life, sharing the stories of such characters as a childless woman in a township filled with youngsters, a coffin-maker who finds unexpected riches, and a politician's widow who is keenly aware that her husband's grave is empty. ATLAS.

Verwacht niet alleen leed in de fascinerende en sprankelende verhalen in De danskampioen. De verhalen in De danskampioen gaan over mensen die onlangs alles lachen, huwen, handelen, eten en drinken. Dat maakt ze even schrijnend als vermakelijk.

De danskampioen

‘Vanuit het duister stralend licht’ van Petina Gappah gaat over de Schotse missionaris en ontdekkingsreiziger Dokter David Livingstone die in 1873 overlijdt in een gehucht in West-Afrika. Zijn rouwende bedienden besluiten het ontzielde lichaam naar de dichtstbijzijnde havenstad te vervoeren, waar ze het aan de koloniale machthebber zullen overdragen voor een waardige begrafenis in Livingstones thuisland. De tocht van meer dan tweeënhalfduizend kilometer leggen ze lopend af, de stoffelijke resten op hun schouders. Dit waargebeurde verhaal heeft Petina Gappah al haar hele leven gefascineerd. In ‘Vanuit het duister stralend licht’ geeft ze een stem aan Livingstones trouwe entourage. Vanuit de perspectieven van de mondige Halima en de diepgelovige Jacob vertelt Gappah over de heldenmoed van de bedienden en de ontberingen die ze geleden hebben uit liefde voor de gestorven Livingstone. Maar ook over de intriges waaraan de hele onderneming bijna ten onder gaat.

Vanuit het duister stralend licht

Oltre le tenebre

Memory kwijnt weg in de Extra Beveiligde Gevangenis Chikurubi in Harare, Zimbabwe, waar ze berecht en veroordeeld is voor de moord op Lloyd Hendricks, haar adoptievader. De doodstraf staat haar te wachten, tenzij ze in hoger beroep vrijgesproken wordt. Haar advocate dringt erop aan dat ze alles opschrijft precies zoals zij het zich herinnert. Memory schrijft dus zowel letterlijk als figuurlijk voor haar leven. Hoe is Lloyd om het leven gekomen? Hoe kwam Memory als meisje van negen bij hem te wonen? Waarom gelooft ze dat haar ouders haar verkocht hebben? En is alles precies zo gegaan als zij zich herinnert?

Het boek van memory

« L’histoire que vous m’avez demandé de vous raconter ne commence pas avec la mort, d’une hideur déplorable, de Lloyd. Elle commence par une journée d’août, il y a bien longtemps, quand j’avais neuf ans, que le soleil brûlait mon visage couvert de cloques et que mon père et ma mère me vendaient à un homme étrange. » Enfermée dans le couloir de la mort, pour un crime qu'elle n'a pas commis, Memory se souvient : son enfance joyeuse dans le township près d'Harare, où la nuit les sorcières mangent les enfants. Son attachement pour cet homme blanc, mystérieux et érudit, qui lui a donné une éducation et l'amour des livres... Désormais, Memory partage ses interminables journées avec Verity et Jimmy, l'arnaqueuse et la prostituée. Entre rire et émotion, le passé resurgit et éclaire son improbable destin. D'une écriture étincelante, mélodique, ce roman plonge le lecteur dans un monde de mystères, de dérisions et d'énergie vitale. Traduit de l’anglais par Pierre Guglielmina

Le livre de Memory

Una novela épica y profundamente humana en el corazón de África. Ganadora del premio Chautauqua 2020 Uno de los mejores libros de 2019 según NPR «Fascinante, hermosa y profundamente imaginativa, es una novela que da voz a aquellos que aparecieron solo como notas al pie de la Historia, pero cuyo último y valiente acto de lealtad y respeto cambió el curso de esta. Un libro increíble e importante de una escritora magistral.» Yaa Gyasi Esta es la historia de los restos maltrechos del «bwana» Daudi, el doctor y explorador David Livingstone, y de las personas que transportaron su cadáver, en un largo y tortuoso viaje a través de una África virgen, para que pudiera recibir sepultura en su Inglaterra natal. Decían los hombres sabios de su época que el cuerpo de Livingstone resplandecía en la oscuridad dejando un rastro de luz tras de sí para que los hombres blancos que le seguían caminaran a salvo. Pero en esta ambiciosa novela de Petina Gappah, los blancos permanecen en la sombra; en esta historia, son sus fieles criados negros quienes resplandecen con intensidad. La voz mordaz y deslenguada de su cocinera y la de un beato sirviente liberado por su amo lideran esta odisea. Su relato de cómo su cuerpo fue trasladado junto a sus escritos y mapas (semillas de la posterior conquista del continente) tiene el poder de lo mítico. De la oscuridad, una luz resplandeciente es una gran novela de aventuras que no solo expone la hipocresía del esclavismo y de la colonización, sino que retrata una África primigenia que se tambalea en la cúspide de un cambio radical. Un libro que celebra la resistencia, la lealtad y el amor. La crítica ha dicho... «Una mirada fresca a la imperecedera historia del colonialismo.» The New York Times «Un trabajo ambicioso y meticulosamente investigado con una comprensión crítica de la utilidad de la ficción a la hora de llenar los vacíos de la Historia.» The Guardian «Una novela sabia y divertida [...]. Una creación maravillosa [...]. Una versión enérgica e iluminadora de una historia que creía que conocía, pero que no conocía en absoluto.» The Times «Gappah descoloniza la leyenda del doctor Livingstone dándole la vuelta al relato, prestando voz a aquellos omitidos en las narrativas oficiales. El resultado es una acusación al legado de la esclavitud y el colonialismo, y, a su vez, una apasionante historia de aventuras.» Library Journal «Mezclando una investigación minuciosa con una imaginación formidable, Petina Gappah resucita esta valiente, descarriada, heroica y malograda expedición [...]. Esta es una hermosa novela.» Anthony Doerr «Petina Gappah conoce lo que escribe. Sus percepciones culturales e históricas suman textura y veracidad a cada página. Una novela poderosa, bellamente narrada.» Jesmyn Ward «Basada en los diarios de Livingstone y narrada por su chismosa cocinera y un liberto con complejo de mesías, esta novela arroja luz a las agonías del colonialismo y la lealtad ciega. El corazón de las tinieblas de Conrad marcha atrás.» O, the Oprah Magazine «Ambiciosa [...].Los personajes de Gappah prevén, pero sin lograr detener, un futuro que acecha a la novela.» The New Yorker «Gappah descoloniza la leyenda del Dr. Livingstone volteando el relato, dando voz a aquellos omitidos en las narrativas oficiales. El resultado es una acusación al legado del legado de la esclavitud y el colonialismo, y, a su vez, una apasionante historia de aventuras.» Library Journal

Petina Gappah

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