Ian Holding is a prominent white Zimbabwean writer widely regarded as being at the forefront of a new generation of Zimbabwean authors and commentators on contemporary Zimbabwe.
Career
The influential American writer Alice Sebold described the novel as, "merciless, poetic and beautiful". The novel was released as one of the inaugural titles of a new imprint of the American publisher Europa Editions in November 2011. In addition to being a Hawthornden Fellow, Ian Holding frequently contributes articles and essays to prominent journals and newspapers and is also a noted short-story writer
Holding lives in his native Harare, Zimbabwe.
Politics
His first novel, Unfeeling was critically acclaimed on publication in the United Kingdom in 2005, and was one of the first fictional attempts dealing with the complex political and social situation in Zimbabwe, in particular the country"s controversial Land Reform Programme. Holding"s second novel, Of Beasts and Beings (Simon & Schuster), an allegory on the nature of "white guilt" and colonialism was released in August 2010 and received favourable reviews for its blend of realism, postmodernism and metafictional techniques.