Dambudzo Marechera
‘It is no so much what is unimaginable as what we cannot imagine that frames each individual human experience’
– Dambudzo Marechera
DOB: June 4, 1952
POB: Rusape, Zimbabwe
Education: St. Augustine’s Mission, Penhalonga; University of Rhodesia; New College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Career: Novelist, playwright, poet, writer in residence at University of Leeds, writer in residence University of Zimbabwe
Publications: House of Hunger (1978), Black Sunlight (1980), The Black Insider (1990)
DOD: He died on the 18 August 1987 in Zimbabwe
Dambudzo Marechera, born Charles Willian Dambudzo Marechera in June 4 1952, is one of Zimbabwe’s most gifted novelist, playwright and poet. He is known for his high quality literary works like the ‘The house of hunger’ which has become Zimbabwe’s most celebrated novel in the literary community.
Born into a poor family in Rusape, Dambudzo won scholarships to St Augustine’s Secondary School, to the University of Zimbabwe and to New College, Oxford but was expelled from all three schools for his eccentric and unsociable behavior. His infamous troubled life went on to become a subject of choice for many autobiography writers.
He died homeless and poor at the age of 35 to an AIDS related pulmonary disorder.
