The man is trying to forget the heartache of a broken love affair — both with his country and with his black girlfriend .(He is white). He has to deal with the expectations of the English establishment and, much like the people who search out spies for their own cause, he feels he is being courted for reasons beyond his comprehension.

He never does have the full answers. Perhaps the novel is more of a journey to a stage where he can at least ask the salient question knowing that there will be another journey ahead.

Which aspects of the work that you put into the book did you find most difficult?

The middle section of the novel which is about Zimbabwe — the passion I have for my home and the plethora of ideas were too much for the shape and structure — the old "more is less" dictum was very hard to follow.

I love Zimbabwe like no other place and can so fully understand the need to justify ones existence by having a piece of land — which was why the war was fought — or partly anyway. And perhaps that too is part of the problem - that our unflinching loyalty to the land has caused a blinkered attitude to the realities of what and how we are governed. You see, like most of us in the Diaspora, the ‘Zimbabwe’ we think of is romanticised into a nirvana which in fact is not a reality.

I am working in the Middle East now as I could not afford to continue teaching at the University of Zimbabwe. and this poverty affects me. How does it affect people in the bush? I know how it affects them. But do I see the starving bellies and the hopeless eyes of the street kids? Ah no... just like the chefs I pass by in my car and wonder if the old man they are leading to beg alms for is really blind. Of course I know he is not but I also see the kids are hungry. I see people rolling up their windows as if they are trying to press a nosegay to their face to avoid a bad smell. Ah yes, I can see — but I do not really look — and that is a crime.

The mirror is an unkind place. Yet we all sit back and wait for the old man to die and wish for a better future. It was the same with Ian Smith and with Welensky etc .... a blinkered reaction to the reality.

I will never leave Zimbabwe forever — it is inconceivable — I have lived in many places in the world picking up stories and experiences. But home is Zimbabwe. I do not think it will get better soon. Rankness in Denmark is not as easily assuaged as it was in the final act of Hamlet. From cheating sanctions during Smiths days to doing black market in Mugabe's days is the same behaviour and we have grown up to think only in those terms. To conceive of a straight society where you change money in a bank for real is ridiculous. We have never done it. That is how deep the level of damage has been.