Rainbow's End

"Yes. I think it is. Peter spawned a genre of Zimbabwe memoirs written by people who thought; ‘I lived through that too, I’m going to write one.’ They were a bit derivative, but Lauren’s isn’t like that. She lived in a house, Rainbow’s End, and something really terrible had happened to the family who lived there before. They were all murdered in the 1970s, the kids and everyone, killed by the terrorists. I don’t think we’re allowed to call them terrorists any more. But she writes about that and about her pony and living the wild life. She calls it a memoir of childhood, war and an African farm and it’s a girl’s own adventure really. She has a fantastic sense of place. She writes children’s books too – The White Giraffe is one of them – and those work really well because of the sense of the country. Rainbow’s End is about the lost dream, I suppose. You can be from anywhere, she says, but not from Africa, not if you’re white. The Happy Nation Index has just come out, it’s a survey from a UK-based think tank called New Economics Foundation, and, of 143 nations surveyed, Zimbabwe is the unhappiest. Life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34. It is like that. Last time I went back, for my best friend’s funeral, I had a camera crew with me making a documentary and I was wandering around my house in Harare, the house I used to live in, and there is a pale patch on the carpet where the grand piano used to be. There is maize drying on the veranda where I used to give huge dinners for 25 people. I gave the house to my gardener. I said; ‘I haven’t got the deeds, but have it if you want it.’ Peter wanted his next book to be more optimistic but I don’t think it will be. Actually, I have chosen a specifically ex-pat book next – Harare North . Harare North is London in the book and it’s in the first person about this Green Bomber, the youth militia for ZANU-PF, and he now lives in Brixton. It’s this cynical, subversive book and a story about the underclass in London that most people don’t even notice – here illegally, doing cash-paid jobs. Eventually he goes completely mad."