The house of hunger can expand the words and meanings of symbols that are often seen daily. This article reads dambudzo marechera s house of hunger as positing a potentially subversive field of collective social engagement. Marechera reading in first street mall, harare, during international book fair harare in aug. Known as the enfant terrible of african literature and africas response to joyce, dambudzo marechera 19521987 has been dismissed by some as mad and applauded by others as a genius. Prize for his first book, the house of hunger, in 1979. Dambudzo marechera s stories are psychologically, rather than politically, motivated as his depictions of living in exile and outsiderhood show. As well as this, marecheras distinctive collage prose is discussed and utilized frequently. Postcolonial narcissism, cryptopolitics, and hypnocritique.
The house of hunger was supposedly written in three weeks in a. The university of new england, armidale, australia. The effect is disquieting, and can, as in the house of hunger, be little short of horrifying. This explosive, awardwinning novella of growing up in. Dambudzo marechera is as wellknown for his eccentric autobiography as he is for his prodigious writing talent. More than twenty years after his death, his work continues to inspire academic studies, biographies, films, and plays.
Dambudzo marechera 4 june 1952 18 august 1987 was a zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet. The old man died beneath the wheels of the twentieth century. Individualism is rejected in the space marechera calls the. You can read online the house of hunger here in pdf, epub, mobi or docx formats. Helon habila has called the books opening line i got my marechwra and left the coolest opening line in african fiction as well as being a fair summary of the writers life. The house of hunger by dambudzo marechera, 9780435895983, available at book depository with free delivery worldwide.
As a result, marecheras novels are less hlly realized alternative visions than repeated attempts to explore a fluid, volatile hybridity from the inside out. Other articles where the house of hunger is discussed. Dambudzo marecheras the house of hunger novel still. Dambudzo marecheras interconnected short stories circulate around a whirlwind of spinning time. There was nothing left but stains, bloodstains and fragments of flesh. Dambudzo marechera was a zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet. Dambudzo marechera the guardian7 january paperbackpages. The house of hunger dambudzo marechera pdf archive. The house of hunger by dambudzo marechera goodreads. The received biography marechera offers much more to african literary criticism than the argument over whether he was too liberated to need a politics or too alienated to produce one. His short career produced a book of stories, two novels one published posthumously, a book of plays, prose, and poetry, and a collection of poetry also posthumous. Dambudzo marechera born charles william dambudzo marechera, 4 june 1952 18 august 1987 was a zimbabwean novelist and poet. In the prefatory essay to the house of hunger a collection including the eponymous novella and eleven other aphoristic, semiautobiographical sketches the zimbabwean writer dambudzo marechera sets marechea his relationship with the english language. In the house of hunger, dambudzo marechera captures the yearning a recently independent rodhesia, later zimbabwe, has for something more than a failed postcolonial future.
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