Look at me! I don’t even realise how unhappy I am until my aunt picks up the phone and I almost start to cry. I tell her that it’s not a nice feeling this “I told you so.” I tell her I can’t do this anymore. I tell her I can’t keep quiet and pretend that I’m some sort of functional type that can swallow all these election posters like there’s no tomorrow, and hey, everything’s going to be ok. Kind of like your mother saying sweetly, anyone for more chocolate cake when she knows you’re watching that lip of fat pout over your knicker line. The thing is people just keep coming. Wanting their fix, or their therapy. Sometimes they linger at the front door talking petitions, like, yeah babe they’re sure going to make a difference. Or if they get further in, past the gate, and the front door, they sink down and kneel on the floor in your office, talking possibilities. And all the time you’re thinking about slipping out the back door and going straight home.

“The words that reverberate for us at the confines of this long adventure of rebellion are not formulas for optimism, for which we have no possible use in the extremities of our unhappiness, but words of courage and intelligence which, on the shores of the eternal seas, even have the qualities of virtue.” – Albert Camus, The Rebel (1951)

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.

Some inspiration from DailyOm:

My train has pulled in for interior refurbishment. How about yours?

Our lives stretch out in front and behind us like train tracks, and we are the train, its passengers, and the engineer. The way you choose to live your life and the goals you are working toward are the route and destinations you have chosen. Like a passenger riding a train, you have the choice to get on and off, find new routes, pick new places to visit, or just stop and enjoy the view for awhile. Perhaps you like to move quickly through life as if you were an express train. Or maybe, like a commuter passenger, you like taking the same routes over and over again. You may even want to stop just riding along and choose a different direction you’d like you’re life to take. If you have examined the tracks of your life and are feeling unsatisfied, you may want to explore changes you could make to find a more fulfilling path to follow. Perhaps you’d like to slow down a little bit more and take a windier path rather than just traveling down the straight and narrow. Or maybe, you’d like to experience your life more as an adventure rather than just a ride that gets you where you need to go. Changing your route can sometimes give you a chance to “get on the right track.” You may even discover that the something new you’ve been waiting for is just around the bend.