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Zimbabwean
writer wins PEN competition
Wonder Guchu, The Herald (Zimbabwe)
May 08, 2007
http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=18497&cat=3
PETINA Gappah,
a Zimbabwean writer living in Geneva, Switzerland, last week won
the second prize for her short story titled At the Sound of the
Last Post in the HSBC Bank/South African PEN competition.
Gappah, whose other story
also received a highest mention from the Nobel laureate, JM Coetzee,
received US$3 000 as prize money.
The award that targets
writers under the age of 40 in the short story genre was established
in 2005 to encourage young creative writers in the Sadc region and
offer them an opportunity to launch a literary career.
It is a joint venture
between the South African Centre of International PEN (SA PEN),
HSBC Bank plc and New Africa Books.
International PEN, the
literary organisation to which SA PEN is affiliated, has 141 centres
throughout the world and has undertaken to publicise the new series
in its global journal PEN International.
This year's competition
had 303 entries from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius,
Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Of this number, only
30 were chosen for publication by New Africa Books in the third
volume of new creative writing, entitled African Pens — New
Writing from southern Africa 2007.
Gappah works as a lawyer
for an organisation that helps developing countries apply and administer
WTO trade agreements.
She was educated in Zimbabwe,
the United Kingdom and Austria. She attended the Karl-Franz University
in Graz, Austria, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the regulation
of investment and competition in the World Trade Organisation.
She holds a Master of
Laws degree from Cambridge University, where she specialised in
Public International Law and European Community Law.
Gappah also
holds a Bachelor of Laws Honours degree from the University
of Zimbabwe.
From 1999-2002, Gappah
was a lawyer in the Appellate Body Secretariat of the World Trade
Organisation. The Secretariat provides support to the Members of
the Appellate Body.
She assisted on disputes
relating to a range of covered agreements including the GATT 1994,
the Anti-dumping Agreement, the Agreement on Safeguards, the SPS
Agreement, the TRIPS Agreement and the Dispute Settlement Understanding.
Gappah also worked with
several individual Appellate Body Members appointed as arbitrators
to determine the reasonable period of time for implementation.
She was a registered
legal practitioner with the High Court of Zimbabwe.
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