Petina Gappah received the Zimbabwe Achiever Award gong for services to Arts and Media in Harare North (London), UK on Saturday, May 7th, 2016.
Petina Gappah has been having a very good year. Her long awaited book The Book of Memory came out recently and was longlisted for the Baileys Prize for Literature although it later failed to make the shortlist. Her story The News of Her Death also made it to the shortlist for the The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award which is the world’s richest prize for a single short story with £30,000 going to the winner.
It seems that the Zimbabwean fraternity has seen that her work is good and opted to give her a unique award; The Zimbabwe Achievers Awards (ZAA). The ZAA is an award which celebrates talent, art, business, expression and achievement in the Zimbabwean community. It recognises Zimbabweans who have done both themselves and their fellow countrymen proud. The award celebrate the best company, entrepreneur, fashion Designer, Personality of the Year among other categories. Last year’s author of the year was Tendai Huchu.
This year’s ceremony hosted at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington was the sixth edition of the awards and many went home with awards. Gappah who was recognised by the awards committee was not available so she was represented by her brother and sister in law.
Congratulations Petina.
