Marechera Moments
Somehow this connects to the UK Marechera conference:
I never got to see Marechera because I didn't move to Harare until after 1987. I had visited the city on school holidays in 1982 and 1985, but after 1987, actually in January 1988, I moved to Harare to do my A-Level. By then someone had already given me a copy of House of Hunger, which I read, on and off, in Mazvihwa, wondering, who was this man whose writing had such captivating expressions? The person who had given me the book, someone from a place called Chakavanda, a place that makes the Santa Cruz terrain look like a joke, had told me that since I was telling the village I was a writer, I needed to be in the company of real writers: he made it a point -- the next time he went back to Harare -- to buy the book for me. Since then, I have been reading the book on an off, with the most intense reading of it happening in 1999 and 2000, when I worked in a bookstore in Sacramento, while going through a Master's program that offered no African writers. By then, of course, I had read anything by Marechera that I could find, including his sourcebook and much of the poetry. I special-ordered most of his posthumous works, etc, and found it unsettling that I could not just walk to a bookstore and purchase a copy. I don't know about where you are, but here it's not customary for bookstores to carry a lot of books by African writers and I am told there is no explanation for that; I mean, even when I was an inventory manager for a large bookstore chain, I never had to have to explain that disparity because no one ever came to me to ask for a book by Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove,and if they did, well, I would check my inventory database to see whether it could be special-ordered.
Anyway, I was saying: My earliest memory of reading Marechera is when I was at Gwavachemai Secondary School (Cambridge mispelled the school on my certificate) in Mazvihwa, when someone went to Harare and bought me a copy of House of Hunger. By the time I arrived in Harare, I easily blended in with the youths who found Marechera an inspiration. Blended? I never could quite blend since I could I was too reserved to act out the Marechera style, but I felt whatever Marechera pain they felt. I was able to join in a conversation and say one or two things about Marechera and get heads (some with sprouting dreadlocks) to throw in a nod or two.
The real treat, however, came with my access to Black Sunlight, which was banned in Zimbabwe then. Someone who had gone to London came came back and said, "Here, I have a book for you. You can't show this book to anyone because it's banned here." Then I read it and went ahead and showed it to my schoolmates, some of whom could care less about literature and writers. Black Sunlight was difficult to understand but it convinced me that Marechera as a great writer. I have since read it at least four times.
Later on I discovered The Black Insider, a suitable gift for someone in any form of exile, even exile from the equilibrium of the self. I read every syllable of this collection of interesting things and felt that it was enriching. I would say I met the real Marechera, the Marechera I never met, when I was outside of Zimbabwe, when reading a Zimbabwean genius was not only necessary but also mandatory, when I convinced myself I had an obligation to read and understand what Marechera was trying to do. In reading him, especially in those nostaligic moments that visit us when we catch a glimpse of home on television, especially those glimpses that usually flash to the world the distasteful about your home, I felt like I was in a meaningful dialogue with Marechera, a dialogue out of compulsion, something in the loop of destiny's signature.
In short, let's celebrate Marechera.
I never got to see Marechera because I didn't move to Harare until after 1987. I had visited the city on school holidays in 1982 and 1985, but after 1987, actually in January 1988, I moved to Harare to do my A-Level. By then someone had already given me a copy of House of Hunger, which I read, on and off, in Mazvihwa, wondering, who was this man whose writing had such captivating expressions? The person who had given me the book, someone from a place called Chakavanda, a place that makes the Santa Cruz terrain look like a joke, had told me that since I was telling the village I was a writer, I needed to be in the company of real writers: he made it a point -- the next time he went back to Harare -- to buy the book for me. Since then, I have been reading the book on an off, with the most intense reading of it happening in 1999 and 2000, when I worked in a bookstore in Sacramento, while going through a Master's program that offered no African writers. By then, of course, I had read anything by Marechera that I could find, including his sourcebook and much of the poetry. I special-ordered most of his posthumous works, etc, and found it unsettling that I could not just walk to a bookstore and purchase a copy. I don't know about where you are, but here it's not customary for bookstores to carry a lot of books by African writers and I am told there is no explanation for that; I mean, even when I was an inventory manager for a large bookstore chain, I never had to have to explain that disparity because no one ever came to me to ask for a book by Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove,and if they did, well, I would check my inventory database to see whether it could be special-ordered.
Anyway, I was saying: My earliest memory of reading Marechera is when I was at Gwavachemai Secondary School (Cambridge mispelled the school on my certificate) in Mazvihwa, when someone went to Harare and bought me a copy of House of Hunger. By the time I arrived in Harare, I easily blended in with the youths who found Marechera an inspiration. Blended? I never could quite blend since I could I was too reserved to act out the Marechera style, but I felt whatever Marechera pain they felt. I was able to join in a conversation and say one or two things about Marechera and get heads (some with sprouting dreadlocks) to throw in a nod or two.
The real treat, however, came with my access to Black Sunlight, which was banned in Zimbabwe then. Someone who had gone to London came came back and said, "Here, I have a book for you. You can't show this book to anyone because it's banned here." Then I read it and went ahead and showed it to my schoolmates, some of whom could care less about literature and writers. Black Sunlight was difficult to understand but it convinced me that Marechera as a great writer. I have since read it at least four times.
Later on I discovered The Black Insider, a suitable gift for someone in any form of exile, even exile from the equilibrium of the self. I read every syllable of this collection of interesting things and felt that it was enriching. I would say I met the real Marechera, the Marechera I never met, when I was outside of Zimbabwe, when reading a Zimbabwean genius was not only necessary but also mandatory, when I convinced myself I had an obligation to read and understand what Marechera was trying to do. In reading him, especially in those nostaligic moments that visit us when we catch a glimpse of home on television, especially those glimpses that usually flash to the world the distasteful about your home, I felt like I was in a meaningful dialogue with Marechera, a dialogue out of compulsion, something in the loop of destiny's signature.
In short, let's celebrate Marechera.
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