Rotten Row

Petina Gappah's Rotten Row is a set of linked short stories set in contemporary Zimbabwe. Moving across lines of class, race, gender and sexuality, the book asks what drives people to crime and what justice actually means for those caught up in it.

In Harare, the phrase "Rotten Row" calls to mind the Criminal Division, its courts, and the many people who pass through them. The stories take that place as their centre, following the lives that run through its corridors and courtrooms.

Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer and lawyer, and her background in the legal system informs the book's close look at how the law touches ordinary lives.