No Safer Kinder Hatred

[A] visceral account of the birth of a nation. It’s an unflinching, forceful and essential memoir, a remarkable gateway to the rich and complex story of Zimbabwe. I read it in one sitting * Brian Chikwava *

Frank Thabani SAYI was born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, in the late 1960s, on the cusp of the war of independence or The Bush War, to overturn a century of racial subjugation. After Zimbabwe’s independence from White Rule, he bore witness to and survived the Gukurahundi Massacres orchestrated by Robert Mugabe’s militias in Matabeleland in the early 1980s. He came to England on a scholarship, and he has previously worked as nurse in cardio-thoracic medicine, intensive care, and gender-reassignment surgery. And for twenty-five years as a Police Officer in Child Sexual Exploitation, Black-on-Black Violence, and Modern Slavery and Child Criminal Exploitation. And most recently, as a lecturer at the Open University in the Law and Business Faculty. He holds a Doctorate in English and Humanities and a Masters in Cultural and Critical Studies, both from Birkbeck, University of London. Frank is also an associate editor on the Brief Encounters Journal as SOAS. His first short story, Shadows, was published in the Mechanics Institute Review in 2015. In his spare time, he enjoys long walks and exploring the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside.