Geoff Hill takes the reader inside Robert Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The author has met with members of both parties who have been prepared to talk candidly with him, giving him behind-the-scenes information. The book considers the role of critics and observers - the role and treatment of the press within Zimbabwe, and the often contradictory responses to Mugabe from the international community. It also looks at the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans living in a collapsing economy. Finally, it considers Zimbabwe’s future - the challenge that lies ahead to rebuild the country.
Geoff Hill is a critically acclaimed author and award-winning feature and travel writer based in Belfast. In a previous life, he was Ireland's most capped volleyball player, the captain of the Northern Ireland team at the Commonwealths and a much younger man.
He's motorcycling correspondent for The Sunday Times, the Metro series of newspapers and the Irish Times, making him the most widely read bike columnist in the UK and Ireland; which is surprising considering that his weekly columns are a desperate attempt to disguise the fact that he knows bugger all about motorbikes.
He's the author of Smith, a novel of which The Independent on Sunday said: "Lyrical and lunatic...few first novels achieve as much'', and which The Times described as "hilarious". This worried him, since he thought it was a serious work, but not half as much as the fact that it only sold half as many copies as his previous work, The Ulster Joke Book, which is available at all good airports and quite a few bad ones.
His first travel book, Way to Go, on two great motorcycle journeys - from Delhi to Belfast on a Royal Enfield and Route 66 on a Harley - was published in April 2005, was the Mail on Sunday's book of the week, was nominated for UK travel book of the year and has been reprinted six times.
The sequel, The Road to Gobblers Knob, on a ride from Chile to Alaska along the 16,500 miles of the Pan-American Highway with former Isle of Man TT winner Clifford Paterson, was published in Spring 2007 and went straight to number seven in Waterstone's paperback best sellers list.
His latest book, Anyway, Where Was I? Geoff Hill's alternative A-Z of the world, was published in September 2008 and also went straight into Waterstone's best sellers list.
His next book, Oz: around Australia on a Triumph, will be published in October 2010, in conjunction with a DVD and TV documentary.
He's either won or been shortlisted for a UK travel writer of the year award nine times. He's also a former Irish travel writer of the year and a former Mexican Government European travel writer of the year, although he's still trying to work out exactly what that means, and in 2005 was given a Golden Pen award by the Croatian Tourist Board for the best worldwide feature or broadcast on Zagreb.
He was NITB Northern Ireland journalist of the year in 2007.
He has written about travel for the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Independent, the Independent on Sunday, Wales on Sunday and Escape, Ireland's biggest travel magazine. He was a long-standing editor for Fodor's, the best-selling American guide book series and had a long-running weekly travel show on U105, the Irish independent radio station.
Outside motorbikes and travel, he has also won one UK and three Northern Ireland feature writer of the year awards and two UK newspaper design awards.
He's also a tutor with the writing school Mightier Than The Sword, where he teaches the art of great writing to journalists, PR and marketing professionals and speechwriters.
He lives in Belfast with his wife Cate, a cat, a hammock and the ghost of a flatulent Great Dane. His hobbies are volleyball, flying, motorbikes, skiing and worrying about the price of fish.
He is a qualified pilot, international volleyball coach and advanced driver and motorcyclist. He's a member of Mensa, for no good reason he can think of.
