Marechera, Dambudzo

The son of a servant and employee in the morgue. Growing up in poverty and in conditions of racial discrimination, he was extremely unsociable everywhere, starting with his family. He studied at a missionary school in Penhalong, near Mutara, then since 1972 at the University of Rhodesia (now the University of Zimbabwe), where he was expelled in 1973 for participating in student unrest. By scholarship he entered the New College of Oxford University in 1974 , from where he was also expelled in 1976 for antisocial behavior; a university psychiatrist diagnosed him with schizophrenia . He lived with friends, abused alcohol and drugs. In 1982 he returned to his homeland, where they were going to make a film according to his first book, but quarreled with the director and the plan was not realized. For the past five years, he has led a homeless, extremely neglected existence, lived in squats , constantly drank and was malnourished. Died of pneumonia caused by AIDS .

Unlike most older African writers and their contemporaries, including Zimbabwe, who mainly developed realistic poetry of socially engaged literature, Marecher clearly and even pointedly focused on European modernism ( Arthur Rimbaud , T. S. Eliot ) , on the poetry of American beatniks ( Allen Ginsberg ). His biography and work are certain features of the damned poet . Of the African authors, Christopher Okigbo was closest to him.

• The House of Hunger ( 1978 , the book of short stories, received high marks from Doris Lessing and Angela Carter ; award for the debut book of the Guardian newspaper; repeatedly reprinted, currently included in the list of 100 best African books of the 20th century ; German translation, 1981 , Holl. Per. 1988, FR. Per. 1999)
• Black Sunlight ( 1980 , a novel, was banned in Zimbabwe; subsequently reprinted; translated into French in 2012)
• Mindblast; or, The Definite Buddy ( 1984 , plays, prose, poems, diaries; German transl. 1989)
• The Black Insider ( 1990 , novel, reprint 1992, 1993, 1999, German translation 1993)
• Cemetery of Mind ( 1992 , book of poems, reprint. 1995, 1999)
• Scrapiron Blues ( 1994 , texts and drafts of recent years)

In the 1990s and 2000s, Marechera’s poetry and prose have been reprinted and translated into many languages ​​more than once, his figure has become emblematic for young generations, and his legacy has attracted the attention of the public and critics.

• Veit-Wild F. Dambudzo Marechera: A Source Book on his Life and Work. London: Hans Zell, 1992 (reprint 1993, 2004)
• Emerging Perspectives on Dambudzo Marechera / Flora Veit-Wild & Anthony Chennells, eds. Trenton: Africa World Press 1999
• Gagiano A. Achebe, Head, Marechera: on power and change in Africa. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000
• Pattison D. No room for cowardice: a view of the life and times of Dambudzo Marechera. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2001
• Caute D. Marechera and the colonel: a Zimbabwean writer & the claims of the state. London: Totterdown Books, 2009
• Moving spirit: the legacy of Dambudzo Marechera in the 21st century / Julie Cairnie, Dobrota Pucherova, eds. Zürich; Münster: Lit, 2012
• Reading Marechera / Grant Hamilton, ed. Woodbridge; Rochester: James Currey, 2013

• Helon Habila article about the life and work of the writer
• Memoirs of the German Africanist, his publisher and biographer Flora Veit-Wilde about the last period of the writer’s life
• Biography and poems on the website of the International Festival of Poetry in Rotterdam