[4] The book has been described as "a collection of stories about every layer of Zimbabwean culture: from the educated and the elite to the quirky, the completely mad and the children running in the street.

"[6] An Elegy for Easterly has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Serbian and Swedish.

[15] The Book of Memory was described by Maya Jaggi in The Guardian as "a powerful story of innocent lives destroyed by family secrets and sexual jealousy, prejudice and unacknowledged kinship",[16] and by Anita Sethi in The Observer as "a moving novel about memory that unfolds into one about forgiveness, and a passionate paean to the powers of language".

[4] Her passion for her work remains strong as she writes about Zimbabwe's failings and injustices in the hope that in the face of darkness, change can be achieved.

It was chosen as a "Book of the Day" by The Guardian, whose reviewer FT Kola concluded: "Rotten Row hums with life, and it delivers one of the keenest and simplest pleasures fiction has to offer: a feeling of true intimacy, of total immersion, in situations not our own, in the selves of others.

Gappah has achieved the difficult task of rendering places some of her readers may never know or visit with such intimacy and aliveness that they feel instantly familiar.

While this is an entrancing feature of the collection, its greatest achievements are due to her sensitivity to both human tragedy and the comedy inherent in existence.

[22] Gappah worked with the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum to re-interpret the Charles d'Orville Pilkington Jackson Tableaux.