I am grateful to the Open Society Foundations (OSF), for a significant fellowship in 2012. I used that time to travel as I ruminated on the two large questions that propel this book: what is the content of justice, both procedural and social, in an ‘open society’, and what is the place of religion in such a society, particularly as expressed in the uneasy mix of Christianity and the traditional pre-Christian beliefs that still claim a hold on Zimbabwe. I know that this is not the non-fiction work that the OSF had hoped to see, but I hope that this book shows that the imaginative freedom afforded by fiction can reveal truths that the necessary caution of non-fiction may be hesitant to trumpet.
In particular, I wish to thank the following current and former OSF staff: Leonard Bernardo and Stephen Hubbell for their kind support and the Zim ‘Quad’ of Tawanda Mutasah, Deprose Muchena, Glen Mpani and Siphosami Malunga.
Writing this book was made a painless delight by the unshakeable confidence of my editor Lee Brackstone, and the faith of Stephen Page and Mitzi Angel. I also wish to acknowledge Sophie Portas and Donna Payne for their thought and care, Kate Murray-Browne for whipping the book into shape, Alex Russell, for rousing me from my bronchial bed on a significant day, and Kate Ward for her forensic search for the perfect ‘Emojis’. At William Morris Endeavour, I am grateful to Eric Simonoff, Raffaella De Angelis, Siobhan O’Neill and for the abiding friendship and continuing support of my former agent Cathryn Summerhayes.
Thank you to my wonderful first listeners: Charity Strässle, Regina Gapa Chinyanga, Farai Mauchaza, Priscilla Sadomba, Vimbayi Gapa and Naomi Mapfumo, and my first readers: Uchi Gappah, Ratiel Gapa, Angeline Kadzirange Gapa, Donald Chinyanga, Helliate Rushwaya Hay, Mary Majoni and Silas Chekera. To Kushinga Gappah, thank you for the supremely heroic effort of reading and editing one whole sentence, and to my soul sisters Chipo Chung, Paula Hawkins, Marina Cavazza, Lauren Beaukes and Marie Darrieussecq thank you for taking me as far as you did.
Thanks are due as well to my Languages Team: Douglas Rogers and Brian Latham who checked that my Rhodesian was fluent enough to pass muster, Takawira Mubako for help with medical language, Hawa Jande Golokai who checked my Sierra Leonean Krio and Brian James who perfected it, Albert Chimedza for help with Zambian Bemba and Tawana Kupe for help with Zimbabwean Kalanga. I also wish to thank Dominic Muntanga for the beautiful gift of the Tonga language, shared by Zambia, the land of my birth and Zimbabwe, the land of my being.
Asi zvokwadi zvingashata ndikasavuchira Nyanduri Tinashe Muchuri, my incomparable Shona editor. Makaita hombarume. Zvigare zvakadaro Mazvimbakupa.
Rotten Row is a book about the relationship between the law and justice. I wish to thank the many friends I met at the UZ all those years ago, twenty-five years in fact, who enriched my life then and continue to do so today. I am especially grateful to the inspiration of Nancy Chauraya Samuriwo and the wise counsel, friendship and support of Tatenda Mawere, Munyaka Makuyana and Tendai Biti. And to Brian Kagoro: though we were unable to squeeze water out of a rock, you have shown me what is possible.
I want to thank the entire squadron at the Advisory Center on WTO Law in Geneva, colleagues past and present: the Dream Team of Carol Lau, Pascale Colombo and Sandra Roethlisberger, the Old Timers Hunter Nottage, Tom Sebastian and Fernando Piérola and the Next Wave (from the post-Roesslerite, Meagh erean era) of Kholofelo Kugler, Vitaliy Pogoretskyy, Leah Malabonga and the Latin Quarter of Maria Alcover, Tatiana Yanguas-Acosta, Christian Vidal-León and Alejandro Sanchez Arriaga. Alejandro, you were always the patient recipient of my endless wittering. Thank you for your friendship.
I want to thank the ‘Senior Friends’ who have advised and mentored me at key stages: Pieter-Jan Kuijper, Ambassador Amina Mohammed and Ian Donovan. Thanks are due as well to Tony Gubbay, for the precious gems from his library, to David Coltart for the Ultimate Dream Job and to Ambassador James Manzou who sold me to the world.
I am also grateful to all my former supervisors and bosses: Kevin Laue and Beatrice Mtetwa at Kantor and Immerman; Debra Steger, Nicolas Lockhart, Peter van den Bossche, Valerie Hughes, Werner Zdouc and Hyung Chong Kim at the Appellate Body Secretariat; and Niall Meagher, Jan Bohanes, Cherise Valles, Leo Palma and Frieder Roessler at the ACWL. I am grateful, too, to all the Appellate Body Members I was privileged to serve, particularly Claus-Dieter Ehlermann, Mitsuo Matsushita, A. V. Ganesan, Yasuhei Taniguchi and Jim Bacchus.
I want to honour three departed teachers whose memories I have invoked in a story in this volume: Lawrence Tshuma, Kempton Makamure and Pearson Nherere. Lawrence taught me Introduction to Law and opened the gateway to a new world; Kempton taught me both The History of Roman and Roman-Dutch Law and Jurisprudence, instilling in me a love for Cicero, legal theory and everything Rome. Pearson, who was born blind and achieved first class law degrees from both Cambridge and Oxford, taught me International Law and inspired me to reach both for those dreaming spires and a bigger world.
My final ‘gratitudes’ are what in Zimbabwe we call kutyora muzura; they are genuflections or very deep curtsies to four exceptional writers. Without Helen Garner’s Joe Cinque’s Consolation and This House of Grief, this book would have been much poorer, as it would have been without the example set for me by Friedrich von Schrirach. Without P. D. James, I would not have found the courage to come to writing at my wizened age, and to find myself moreover, with a well-appointed room within her publishing house. And having found that room, I am grateful to John Coetzee, for the words that opened the doors to even more, and for Summertime, for Youth and for Boy.
Thank you all.
About the Author
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her debut collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Award in 2009. Her debut novel, The Book of Memory, was published in 2015 and longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
By the Same Author
AN ELEGY FOR EASTERLY
THE BOOK OF MEMORY
Copyright
First published in 2016
by Faber & Faber Ltd
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This ebook edition first published in 2016
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© Petina Gappah, 2016
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ISBN 978–0–571–32420–0
Rotten Row Page 29
