Brian Chikwava in The Guardian:
As Zimbabweans go to the polls, one writer and poet they may do well to remember is the late Dambudzo Marechera. Marechera, who died in 1987 at only 35, was one of African literature’s most fascinating and unorthodox figures. He is, on a sunny afternoon, one of Africa’s first products of the post-modern condition; and on a damp morning, Africa’s first intellectual aberration. Such is the ambivalent nature of his work. After being expelled from Oxford University for his anarchist tendencies in 1976 and spending years on the streets with his rucksack and typewriter, Marechera returned to independent Zimbabwe in 1982 where he continued with his street life. His encounter with independent Zimbabwe was not a wholly comfortable experience for him. “I have been an outsider in my own biography, in my country’s history, in the world’s terrifying possibilities,” he once said.
More here.
