Petina Gappah studied law at the Universities of Zimbabwe, Craz in Austria and Cambridge. Her short fiction is featured in two anthologies, Laughing Now and Women Writing Zimbabwe, both published in 2008 by Weaver Press, Zimbabwe. In 2007, she came second in a SADC-wide short story contest judged by J.M. Coetzee. She lives in Geneva, Switzerland with her son Kush, where she works as a lawyer for the ACWL, an organisation that advises developing counties on international trade law. Her debut novel An Elegy for Easterly will be published by Faber and Faber in April 2009.