Petina Gappah

She is currently the Principal Legal Advisor to the Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area based in Accra, Ghana. As well as being an international trade lawyer, Petina is a novelist and playwright. She is the author of two novels – Out of Darkness, Shining Light and The Book of Memory – and two short story collections: Rotten Row and An Elegy for Easterly. Her work has been published in more than a dozen languages, including by The New Yorker and Der Spiegel.  She is the recipient of the Chautauqua Prize, the McKitterick Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and Zimbabwe’s NAMA Award.