by Dambudzo Marechera

“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.”

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.

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.

A limited Chimurenganyana edition of The Fear and Loathing Out of Harare is available in print at the Chimurenga Factory, or from our our online store