Lauren St John and Brian Chikwava Lecture: Thursday 21 October 2010

Lauren St John

The bestselling author of the White Giraffe series of children's adventure novels and her acclaimed memoir, Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War & Africa, will be the guest speaker at our 2010 lecture at the Royal Geographical Society.

Frustrated with the stereotyped image of Africa as a basketcase of war, poverty and corruption, Lauren will talk about the magnetic appeal the continent has had over writers as diverse as Joseph Conrad, Nadine Gordimer and Alexander McCall Smith, and why she likes to celebrate the people, animals and beauty of Africa in her work.

She says:

The landscape is so magical and there are so many resourceful, beautiful and interesting people in Africa whose stories just don’t get heard. That’s why I admire the novels of Alexander McCall Smith so much; they show such a positive image of Africa.

 

 

This memoir works on many levels. It is a spot-on account of coming of age in the l970s, at once universal and intensely African. Above all this is a memoir of a country. It is a love letter to a harsh yet beautiful land with invigorating prose soaked in African sunshine...

New Statesman

 

 

St John brings Africa to life in this... stirring story

Guardian

 

 

...A lovingly written book that immerses you in Africa’s rugged charms

Times online

 

Brian Chikwava

Brian’s instant success as an African writer is surely attributable to his rare skill in creating laugh out loud comedy out of darkest desperation. He left Zimbabwe when he was 30 because like so many African artists, he felt it was no longer a culturally vibrant nation.

Like the main character in Harare North, he found himself a stranger in a strange land but unlike him Brian had the benefit of an education.

That, he believes, made all the difference.

He says:

It’s easier for the government to brainwash young people who haven’t had such a good education, and get them to do things a normal thinking person would find hard to get on with.

They end up being the people sent out to do the horrible acts. The big question for me is will people who have suffered such hardship ever be able to support a properly functioning society again?

 

Harare North - Ducking and diving in his quest for survival, the unnamed narrator of Harare North is a Zimbabwean asylum seeker for whom the word ‘unreliable’ is an understatement.

Arriving in London determined to find his friend Shingi and earn enough money to pay off his debts and return to his country, he’s an anti-hero whose fierce, funny voice accompanies the reader through Brixton squat life, minimum-wage jobs and, for the reader, the realisation that the line between comedy and tragedy is very thin indeed.

The Past is Another Country

The lecture "The Past is Another Country" will be followed by a fundraising dinner and fund raising auction at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge, London. Tickets £75.00

Please email info@hiz.org.uk to make a provisional ticket reservations.