What inspires your writing?
Day to day life, the ordinary and mundane, flashes of imagination in which lies the possibility to peer behind the veil. People. Cities. Other writers.

Have you always been a writer? How did it all begin?
It’s almost impossible to pinpoint the exact point at which I became a writer. Was it my apprenticeship in my high school newspaper, could it have been a proto manuscript written when I was sixteen, perhaps it was when I first read Dostoevsky in my early 20s and decided to have a go. The true answer probably lies in a constellation that joins all these dots.

Have you found it limiting living abroad but writing about Zimbabwe?
No.

Which local or international novelist do you recommend to read right now?
NoViolet Bulawayo, the author of We Need New Names.

What are you currently working on?
A new manuscript called The Maestro, The Magistrate, & The Mathematician.

Your brief thoughts on Zimbabwe’s contemporary literary scene – alive and well or “alive but dead”?
We have a few good writers I can point to, Bryony Rheam, Petina Gappah, Irene Sabatini, Brian Chikwava. You’ll notice most of the people on this list are female. If you look at Zimbabwean literature today, and thinking of other writers still in the shadows but emerging, Novuyo Tshuma, Barbara Mhangami, Melissa Tandiwe Myambo, etc, it becomes even more evident that male writers such as myself are at the periphery while the female writers occupy centre stage, and this is through pure merit alone.

When you aren’t reading or writing, what are you doing?
Dealing with real life, paying bills, stressing about one thing or the other, worrying the world is coming to an end, you know – the usual stuff.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Being dropped by my publisher, which showed me the weaknesses in my own work, but more importantly helped me to realise that self-belief was important, and ultimately, for all the romantic myths we spin about writing, it is just business.

What is your favourite journey?
Wtf?

Would you call the Hairdresser of Harare political in any way?
It is political in the sense that everyday human life is lived within politically defined parameters. Where you may or may not go, who you may or may not marry, what you may or may not smoke, the things you can or cannot say – all these things are embedded within a political framework. The Hairdresser of Harare is political only in the sense that all literature is political.

Got any personal anecdotes from visits to your barber!
I wear dreadlocks, in case you haven’t noticed. A visit to the barber is quite out of the question! (whoops … interviewer)

What do you miss most about home?
The people.

Sadza, rice and chicken or “fast food”?
You can never go wrong with sadza.

According to today’s NewsDay, the price of fuel has gone up from around $1.50 / litre for petrol to $1.70 / litre for petrol following last week’s election. It seems pretty hard to believe that this is what Zimbabweans were hoping would be the most immediate result of a Zanu PF win. If you haven’t already read it, check out the Zanu PF 2013 election manifesto. Since they’ve got such a resounding victory, they shouldn’t have any problems making good on their promises to develop, empower and employ Zimbabweans.

Update 6 August: Herald headline – Fuel price increase reports false: Zera

Zanu PF has put up election adverts in all sorts of places. Rocks, trees, rubbish bins, walls. They’ve even bought formal advertising space and put up full scale billboards and other smaller fixed structure advertising. Makes me wonder if a civic organisation wanting to share slogans like Stand Up For Your Rights, would have been allowed to do the same.

So this morning I woke up with no Internet connection on my phone – I am an Econet subscriber. When I realised my phone had no Internet at first I thought switching it off and on would do the trick. But alas this did not solve the problem. On my way to work in a kombi I decided to remove my line and battery and connect them again hoping this was the final trick to solving the Internet connection problem.

Just as I was doing that I realised the guy sitting next to me was doing the same thing. We then realised we were facing the same difficulties. Some of my friends I just spoke to say their connection is very slow and switching the phone off and on again is helping them but its still irritating. Many subscribers have taken to the Econet Facebook page to raise this issue of limited or no data connection.

It would help to get an explanation over why we have no access to the mobile Internet service!!!

Funny how Econet has a Facebook page but screws up mobile internet connectivity which is what the bulk of those who follow this page use.

What’s going on with your Data today Econet, don’t you think you should notify your subscribers somehow… Bad service!

However, Econet who update their Facebook page on a regular basis have kept mum on this issue. No explanation whatsoever has been given. We hope whatever is going on at Econet will be rectified.

Had a chat with my older ‘brother’ the other day. We are now involved in the same project, and know where the other stands politically because when I was elected in 2002, on an MDC ticket, to City Council, he was not elected, on the Zanu PF ticket. Since then, I have left the MDC, and not been elected as an Independent, and he was not been elected as Zanu PF. This time, I am not standing, independently, and he is not standing, as Zanu PF (although he is still a member).

The bit that got me going – he says, “these papers, they tell lies.”

I agree. Papers, journalists, they all tell lies. Almost as many as politicians.

“These other papers, they should be banned.”

But, I argue, I know the Herald tells lies. I have been a part of events, and read about it in the Herald the next day, and what they wrote did not happen. All lies. So if you want to ban one, you have to ban them all.

“No, the Herald does not lie.”

But I was there, I was central to events, and what the Herald reported did not happen. They told lies. If you ban one, you ban them all.

“But the Herald is a government paper.”

As if this makes any difference! And now I am just thinking. What hold does the government (which is only partly made up of his former ruling party) have on his mind. When he believes this. Which basically means that he is calling me, standing right here in front of him, a liar. Because my story demonstrates (proves) that which he is not able to hear. That the Herald writes lies. That half of the government (his party) is only half of the government, and being made up of politicians, they are liars.

It will take quite some time to unravel some alternate realities.

Did you know that since 15 July, ZTV’s given Zanu PF 90 minutes (favourable) coverage, and MDC-T 10 minutes (mostly negative).
- Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe