Where do you consider home and why?
Home is where my family is and sometimes family isn’t merely blood.
List three words or phrases that come to mind when you think of home.
Love, laughter, provision.
Have you ever been homesick? Tell us the circumstances and how it felt.
First three months of university I was terribly homesick, I had never been away from home on my own and the UK was grey, dark, cold and rainy as opposed to Zimbabwean dry heat and sun.
What is your opinion about brain-drain?
Our leaders need to do better to create an environment of opportunity for everyone, not just those within their circles.
In what way does your physical location impact your creative output?
I need to be in a place where I can create a comfortable and conducive space that doesn’t change until I need it to, otherwise I am distracted.
What is your preferred mode of travel and why?
Private jet! Hahaha. Failing that I take what I can get but preferably with clean seats.
In her debut collection of poems Home Coming, Sonia Sanchez’s writes:
“i have returned \\ leaving behind me \\ all those hide and \\ seek faces peeling\\ with freudian dreams.”
What does the phrase “freudian dreams” mean to you?
Something to do with Sigmund Freud, of which it means to me a limitation because the dreams are interpreted according to Freud and I’d have to look it up so I can’t say it means much to me, but the word dreams is what speaks to me. Dreams are limitless.
The mission to establish a colony of humans on Mars is becoming a realistic proposition. Would you agree to be one of the founding members?
NOPE! We still haven’t got earth right, much less another planet.
This is the 10th anniversary of Ake Arts and Book Festival. If you have attended this festival before, please tell us what was special about your experience. If you have never attended, what are your expectations?
I always hope for the best experience wherever I go.
What does Africa need right now?
Leaders with vision and integrity who hold themselves and each other accountable.