“A novelist, poet and playwright who writes equally well in Shona and E...” — Petina Gappah Quote

“A novelist, poet and playwright who writes equally well in Shona and English, Charles Mungoshi is Zimbabwe's finest and most versatile writer. His life project has been to interrogate the notion of family.”

“I guess you could say I'm lucky because I've known a Zimbabwe that didn't have Robert Mugabe leading it. One of the saddest things about Zimbabwe is there are so many hidden casualties of the Mugabe government's misrule. They're not just casualties that you immediately see.”

“Only al-Jazeera is allowed to report from Zimbabwe, but it is unwatchable. Their Zimbabwean reporter Supa Mandiwanzira was one of Zanu-PF's praise-singers at the reviled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.”

“Charles James was a dear friend of mine when I was a little boy - 17, 18. He was mad as a hatter. I had no idea how famous he was.”

“As a schoolboy, I loved Charles Dickens. His 'David Copperfield' has had the strongest influence on me - I looked up to David Copperfield as a role model.”

“Among other things they picked out a detail that Charles had been offered the Governorship of Hong Kong in its dying days by Thatcher in return for shutting up about the inner cities. He quite rightly in my view led the paper on this story.”