Andrea Eames

Andrea Eames is a paradox.

In person she is tiny, blonde, pretty; adores combing through thrift shops for bizarre objects (memorable items include an anatomical model of a foot and a stuffed squirrel in a deerstalker), reading and writing, cooking and painting; and her beloved husband and cats. On paper she channels the savage, the soul-chilling. Her imagination is populated by the ghosts of revolutions, by child soldiers and spirit guides, brutal wife-beating uncles and boys dying in cages of elephant bones. A child of Africa, whose family did not have a life 'outside our whiteness', her first two books are set in Zimbabwe at the time of the revolution and during its bloody aftermath - a Zimbabwe she and her family made the difficult decision to leave or risk losing their lives.

The White Shadow, Eames' latest book, juxtaposes a young boy's coming-of-age with the war that swept all those within the former Rhodesia, black or white, into inescapable conflict. Her protagonist, Tinashe, enjoys an idyllic childhood in the bush; he plays in the abundant red dust and frolics in the slow brown river, idolises his father and learns the lore of the veldt, that strange spirit-world that straddles the living and spiritual realms. Tinashe's parents yearn for a second boy, but a girl is born, a strange silent sharp-toothed little creature. Tinashe elects himself the little Hazvinei's protector. Through their parents' death from cholera, their move to the city where they live with their rich uncle and charismatic cousin Abel, to Hazvinei's passage into the spirit world, Tinashe consistently sacrifices his potential in order to shield his sister from harm.

It's an experience I haven't had before, and it was a little unsettling at first.

What is most remarkable about Eames' narrative is that her voice is entirely subsumed within that of her characters. There is no trace of the white woman; the voice of the black Shona boy resonates through the tale to an uncanny degree. Nor is there a trace of the fatalism that characterises so many novels about African conflict. Each character is shown to have made choices, to be responsible for his or her own fate: 'I feel that Tinashe needs to be stripped of everything, particularly his often-unhealthy symbiotic (or perhaps parasitic) relationship with his sister, in order to find out who he really is.' Eames admits that writing The White Shadow was a strange experience. 'I actually began to hear Tinashe's voice in my head before I had even thought about writing a book like The White Shadow. I sat down and wrote 20,000 words as if I were taking dictation - and so I don't feel as though I created him at all! It's an experience I haven't had before, and it was a little unsettling at first. The challenge after that was maintaining that sense of his reality even when the going got tough,' she recalls.

Eames is a creature of habit, insistent on meticulous order in her daily life; before she can start writing the house must be clean, the dishes done, and all must be calm and serene, because 'for so much of my writing life I am flailing around wildly, caught up in high (imagined) drama or feeling overwhelmed. Organising everything else to within an inch of its life allows me to contain this mess where it belongs - on the page.' Such a high-octane existence, of course, demands the consumption of at least two pots of coffee each morning. Her narrative is carefully, even intricately constructed. 'For The White Shadow, I printed out all the material I had, took to it with a pair of scissors and some glue and created the structure of the plot within several blank scrapbooks, with notes where more work was needed. I borrowed this method from my days working for a small publishing company that produced travel guides - we would mock up a dummy book, with all the text, image and ad spaces laid out. I found this very helpful.' She is 'in love with routine' and finds it 'impossible to function without it. It is important to me that I start work as soon as I get out of bed - it helps to focus and prioritise my whole working day… I go through to my workspace in my pyjamas to write 500 words before I do anything else. This helps to give my day direction and purpose from the very beginning.'

Growing up in Zimbabwe meant that I was confronted with violence and death on a daily basisEames admits that her writing is 'preoccupied with death'. The White Shadow is an intimate journey through the many phases of loss and bereavement, which is echoed by her own history. Her biological father was killed in a car crash, and her paternal grandparents both suffered long, terminal illnesses. 'Growing up in Zimbabwe,' she says, 'meant that I was confronted with violence and death on a daily basis.' Writing is, therefore, an act of bravery, an attempt to work through conflicting emotions and deep psychological wounds: 'I think we are called to write about our own personal demons and, for me, that is losing people I love. Because the prospect frightens me so much, I have to explore it.' That being said, she has not been able to return to Zimbabwe since she left in 2002: 'I would love to go back, but the idea also absolutely terrifies me. I know that Zimbabwe now is not the Zimbabwe in which I grew up - and I'm not sure if there is still a place for me there. I have a lot of guilt associated with leaving, as well; as if I betrayed my country by moving away when things were difficult. I sometimes feel like there is another Andrea still living there who did not leave - as if I split in two when I left, and the two worlds can never meet. I know that's ridiculous, but it's a pervasive idea.'

While she is frank about her need to work through her past in order to face the present, Eames does not use real-life individuals as the basis of her White Shadow characters. In depicting Tinashe, his father Baba and his uncle Babamukuru, she is more attempting to portray different representations of what constitutes maleness. She is wary of writing about her own family, be it the imagined personality of her biological father or relatives; selecting elements of a person's character or history and discarding the rest runs the risk of betraying their trust or exposing that which they would rather conceal. However, she does not consider any subject to be taboo. 'When people - and characters - are faced with difficult or morally ambiguous situations, they have to make difficult choices,' she notes, 'and I don't want to shy away from that.' Her predictions for her character Tinashe may almost be said to echo her hopes for herself. 'I do imagine him as surviving the events in the book and using his new strength and freedom to pursue his own path, although he will always be haunted by his family obligations and the tragedies in his past.'

I would love to have ten years' worth of books behind me, representing ten years' worth of development, progress and lessons learnedIt took Eames several years of separation from Zimbabwe to be able to write about it. 'Perhaps I need that distance and that span of years to see things more clearly,' she notes. Future projects may include a book set in New Zealand, where she settled with her family after leaving Zimbabwe; a work set in her current home Texas may be some time coming, for she believes that a book's authenticity relies upon an intimacy with the setting, the history and culture and people, of a given country. Her Proustian moment is the scent of Zimbabwean thunderstorms; that 'metallic smell to the air and a rinsed-clean, earthy scent from the puddles and wet ground that takes me right back to Harare.' While she does not like to predict the future - after all, her past has been one of upheaval, tumultuous events and overseas moves -  she is highly driven and extremely ambitious: 'I would love to have ten years' worth of books behind me, representing ten years' worth of development, progress and lessons learned.'

Interview by Mara MacSeoinin