THE HAIRDRESSER OF HARARE

190pp., paperback, Athens, 2010

The Guardian named Huchu's debut novel set in contemporary Zimbabwe one of its ten best contemporary African books.

“...a perfect end of summer read; my book was sticky from sweat and sugary from bubbling peaches that went into the pies and preserves I was making – a delicious hair-salon-gossip kind of novel about minding, mending and maintaining social mores. It is a novel about heartbreak, but more seriously, it is also about the inevitable breaks that happen in one’s psyche, sometimes accompanied by injury to the physical body, when one’s community disciplines in order to reinforce its social and sexual expectations.”—Neelika Jayawardane, author of Africa Is a Country

“This sharp, entertaining, and thoughtful debut is rife with sociopolitical commentary but never loses its humanity... Through deceptively simple observations and plain prose, Huchu exposes readers to issues of classism, racism, and homophobia without ever coming across as preachy or heavy-handed.” Kirkus Reviews

Tendaui Huchu was born in 1982 in Zimbabwe. He is the author of The Maestro, the Magistrate, and the Mathematician. He works as a podiatrist in Edinburgh.