“An episode in a conversation that has continued and will continue…” says Kodwo Eshun as he and partner in The Otolith Collective Anjalika Sagar sit with George Shire to study the writing and legacy of Dambudzo Marechera.
The conversation includes readings from and commentary on Black Sunlight as well as unpublished Marechera manuscripts. A companion Pan African Space Station (PASS) session can be heard here.
Recorded for PASS at The Showroom, London 2015. For more visit the Pan African Space Station (PASS)
During April 1985 Dambudzo Marechera began work on a book on Harare, inspired in part by the HS Thompson’s gonzo opus on Las Vegas. Writing that shows how the city held him in precarious balance, homeless at home, a black insider on the outside of the outside. At some point he abandoned the project and the pieces lived in the archives, unloved:
“I formed the Harare eye: not just the Harare of the African flats or the Harare of the hotel bars or the shebeens and the kachasu drinkers or the high-density areas. For me the only way to express this Harare is to experiment with all available literary styles and perhaps come to a successful combination. There is no particular Harare psyche or mentality.”
The limited Chimurenganyana edition The Fear and Loathing Out of Harare is a selection of these never-published essays, in collaboration with the Dambudzo Marechera Trust, with an afterword by writer Tinashe Mushakavanhu and a map-poster of Marechera’s Harare conceived by the Black Chalk & Co collective.
To purchase your copy of The Fear and Loathing Out of Harare head to our online shop or visit Chimurenga Factory at 157 Victoria Road, Woodstock, Cape Town.
This article and other work by Chimurenga are produced through the kind support of our readers. Please visit our donation page to support our work.