The House of Hunger
Published on 28. April 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-0-241-54425-9 (ISBN)
Description
'One of African literature's most fascinating and unorthodox figures' Brian Chikwava
'When all else fails, don't take it in silence: scream like hell, scream like Jericho was tumbling down, serenaded by a brace of trombones, scream'
Dambudzo Marechera burst onto the literary scene in 1978 with this vivid roar of a book exploring township life in pre-independence Zimbabwe. Rejecting what he saw as the narrow stereotypes of African literature, Marechera's stories portrayed a world flashing with violence and anarchic humour, as his narrator expresses his desperate alienation - from his family, from his student friends, from Zimbabwe itself.
'A writer who considered fiction a "form of combat", complex, challenging - and uniquely potent' Guardian
'Like overhearing a scream' Doris Lessing
'A terrible beauty is born out of the urgency of his vision' Angela Carter
'When all else fails, don't take it in silence: scream like hell, scream like Jericho was tumbling down, serenaded by a brace of trombones, scream'
Dambudzo Marechera burst onto the literary scene in 1978 with this vivid roar of a book exploring township life in pre-independence Zimbabwe. Rejecting what he saw as the narrow stereotypes of African literature, Marechera's stories portrayed a world flashing with violence and anarchic humour, as his narrator expresses his desperate alienation - from his family, from his student friends, from Zimbabwe itself.
'A writer who considered fiction a "form of combat", complex, challenging - and uniquely potent' Guardian
'Like overhearing a scream' Doris Lessing
'A terrible beauty is born out of the urgency of his vision' Angela Carter
Reviews / Votes
A profound, even if exaggeratedly self-aware writer, an instinctive nomad and bohemian in temperament, Marechera was a writer in constant quest for his real self -- Wole Soyinka A terrible beauty is born out of the urgency of his vision -- Angela Carter The metaphors are simultaneously so uncliched and so apt that he reinvigorates the language -- China Mieville on THE BOOKS THAT MADE ME Like overhearing a scream -- Doris Lessing A writer who considered fiction a 'form of combat', his work is complex, challenging - and uniquely potent -- Chris Power * The Guardian *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 125 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
136 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-54425-9 (9780241544259)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Dambudzo Marechera was born in 1952 in Vengere, the township of Rusape, in the east of what was then Rhodesia. He was the third of nine children in a family which became destitute once his father was killed in a road accident in 1966. he gained a scholarship to study at New College, Oxford, where he was sent down in 1976 to live out his exile in Britain in a succession of squats for another six years. He hammered out the first draft of The House of Hunger on his portable typewriter in a matter of weeks. It won the Guardian First Novel Prize and was translated into six languages. Marechera died in 1987 after being diagnosed with AIDS.