
The House of Hunger
Dambudzo Marechera(Author)
Penguin Classics (Publisher)
Published on 17. April 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
128 pages
978-0-241-75224-1 (ISBN)
Description
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
'No, I don't hate being black. I'm just tired of saying it's beautiful. No, I don't hate myself. I'm just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw.'
A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet flare, Dambudzo Marechera's seminal literary debut explores a body and spirit exiled from the land and the self. An inimitable and internationally admired writer, his profound ambivalence and wry, existential sensibility was forged in this iconic book.
'No, I don't hate being black. I'm just tired of saying it's beautiful. No, I don't hate myself. I'm just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw.'
A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet flare, Dambudzo Marechera's seminal literary debut explores a body and spirit exiled from the land and the self. An inimitable and internationally admired writer, his profound ambivalence and wry, existential sensibility was forged in this iconic book.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 177 mm
Width: 107 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
80 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-75224-1 (9780241752241)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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.