IRENE /
SABATINI
ZIMBABWE
PROSE
rene Sabatini was born in Zimbabwe just over 40 years ago and grew up in the country’s second biggest city, Bulawayo, a city with a large library where Sabatini spent as much time as she could. A literary om- nivore, it was not until she had completed her university studies in Harare and was spending four years as a teacher in Colombia that she began to write herself.
After Bogota, it was the Caribbean, then back to Harare, where she worked as an editor.
Now she lives in Geneva and devotes herself full time to her writing.
Her debut novel, The Boy Next Door, was published in 2009 and received with enthu- siasm. It tells of love across racial boundaries and describes Bulawayo in the 1980s during the violent, troubled times immediately following independence. For her debut novel, Sabatini was awarded the British Orange Award for New Writers, and rights to the book were promptly sold to Germany, Holland, Norway and Sweden. In the autumn of 2010, the Swed- ish translation by Inger Johansson was pub- lished by Norstedts (Pojken på andra sidan).
