Zimbabweans’ letters to a literary star
THE writer, Dambudzo Marechera, who died on August 18 1987, remains a popular figure in Zimbabwe. He is heralded by a young generation as a radical and counter-culture figure.
Marechera became an instant star when his first book, The House of
Hunger. was published in 1978. The novella tells of growing up in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in raw and exquisite prose, a harrowing portrait of lives disrupted and young disillusionment. The rumour is that he wrote it in a tent or squat.
After confounding critics and foes, and leading an erratic lifestyle, Marechera was dead at 35. But who is Marechera? He died when I was aged 4 and has always been an enigma. But I recently discovered a set of old letters that reveal the real import of his influence.
For a long time I associated the
National Archives of Zimbabwe with bureaucracy and viewed it as an unwelcoming security zone. My early visits were focused on accessing the Marechera papers, or what remains of them. The more I visited, the more items went missing, and sometimes they were truncated. When I told friends, many suggested that the institution has a general suspicion of researchers and that it censors information.
It was during one of these visits that I saw a folder that contained a neat pile of hundreds of handwritten letters. The letters are valuable historic documents; their inclusion in the national archives was a fate their writers could never have imagined.
Addressed care of the Dambudzo Marechera Trust, the letters were dispatched after Marechera’s death from urban townships, rural areas, growth points, mining compounds, farms; places that only appear in the news during election season or moments of catastrophe. In death, Marechera ruptures the view of Zimbabwe as a little corridor that starts in Harare and ends in Bulawayo. These letters provide a unique psychological and physical map of his enduring influence.
The correspondents feel comfortable talking to Marechera. They know he will never scold them for what they say. He is ordinary like them, but constantly harassed by the state and its security apparatus. Most are school drop-outs who absconded to join the war and came back to no jobs or unwelcoming families.
After the war, they were expected to grow up quickly and join the army of nation builders. But there were no systems created to deal with the traumas of war.
Many returned with stories and nightmares and didn’t know how to share them, or where to turn for help. The government bureaucrats were unconcerned. They turned to Marechera who was the resident philosopher in Harare’s nightclubs and bars. One letter, dated May 18 1989, read: “Never before have I encountered an author so seriously dedicated to his pen and voice as the late Dambudzo ‘Desperate’ Marechera. He remains my luminary in my poetic endeavour; his courageous denunciation of ‘filthy first citizens’ is an undying inspiration to me.”
Marechera’s death was a necessary death. For the political class it was good riddance, but for multitudes of young people Marechera’s death was an awakening.
His death is the moment he was born again. He changes with every memory, every retelling. If Marechera had not existed, Zimbabwe would have invented him.