Petina Gappah writes about African women and men

Writer Petina Gappah uses her work to represent the experiences of African men and women who have suffered in silence, according to the Società delle Missioni Africane. Gappah was born in Zambia and raised in Zimbabwe.

Her short story collection, An elegy for easterly, won the Guardian First Book Award in 2009. The stories include a woman in a slum, an elderly coffin maker at No Matter, and a politician's widow. Her first novel, La confessione di Memory, was published in Italy in 2016.