The House of Hunger was originally published in by Heinemann in 1978. The book is a collection of harrowing, autobiographical short stories in which Marechera’s experiences both in his native Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and as a university student at Oxford, are channeled into a psychedelic cascade of blistering imagery and broken stream-of-consciousness narratives. In his own words, writing in English - his second language - rather than the Shona he grew up speaking, meant confronting the inherent racism of the language, “discarding grammar, throwing syntax out, subverting images within […] developing torture chambers of irony and sarcasm, gas ovens of limitless black resonance”.
Over the course of the episode, we discuss the violence and vibrancy of Marechera’s prose, consider his attitude to the newly independent Zimbabwe, and his torturous love affair with the English language.
Bibliography:
'African Doppelganger: Hybridity and Identity in the Work of Dambudzo Marechera' by David Buuck in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 28, No. 2, Autobiography and African Literature (Summer, 1997), pp. 118-131
'On Dambudzo Marechera: The Life and Times of an African Writer' by Helon Habila in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 82, No. 1, A Special Report: Aids in Africa (Winter 2006), pp. 251-260
‘Reveling in Genre: An Interview with China Miéville’ in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, The British SF Boom (Nov., 2003), pp. 355-373
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The House of Hunger was originally published in by Heinemann in 1978. The book is a collection of harrowing, autobiographical short stories in which Marechera’s experiences both in his native Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and as a university student at Oxford, are channeled into a psychedelic cascade of blistering imagery and broken stream-of-consciousness narratives. In his own words, writing in English - his second language - rather than the Shona he grew up speaking, meant confronting the inherent racism of the language, “discarding grammar, throwing syntax out, subverting images within […] developing torture chambers of irony and sarcasm, gas ovens of limitless black resonance”.
Over the course of the episode, we discuss the violence and vibrancy of Marechera’s prose, consider his attitude to the newly independent Zimbabwe, and his torturous love affair with the English language.
Bibliography:
'African Doppelganger: Hybridity and Identity in the Work of Dambudzo Marechera' by David Buuck in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 28, No. 2, Autobiography and African Literature (Summer, 1997), pp. 118-131
'On Dambudzo Marechera: The Life and Times of an African Writer' by Helon Habila in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 82, No. 1, A Special Report: Aids in Africa (Winter 2006), pp. 251-260
‘Reveling in Genre: An Interview with China Miéville’ in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, The British SF Boom (Nov., 2003), pp. 355-373
On this episode of Sherds Podcast, I’m joined by writer, Quentin S. Crisp, to discuss his new novel, Graves (2019), published by Snuggly Books, who give the following description of the book:
In Graves, Damien, a male nurse and self-styled ‘thanatophile’, is in love with death in its purer and more ideal form. However, as he casts around for some authentic way to defy the void of modernity, his thanatophilia is swiftly and insidiously corrupted. Scavenging what ‘materials’ he can, he works in isolation like a reverse Doctor Frankenstein, wishing to understand the secrets of death, not life, in order to break the narrative power of science over the modern mind.Set against the backdrop of anomie-drenched 21st-century London, Graves, Quentin S. Crisp’s second major novel, is a work of Gothic horror that confronts the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness in a world where it is easier to believe in artificial intelligence than human intelligence.
Over the course of the programme we discuss the influence of Japanese Literature on Crisp’s work, the importance of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Graves, and the moral complexities of antinatalism.
Footnotes:
Some of the authors mentioned by Crisp throughout the programme are:
Nagai Kafu - you can read about Quentin S. Crisp’s relationship with this writer here: https://mathewfriley.com/2010/08/quentin-s-crisp-the-book-i-would-like-to-be-buried-with/
Justin Isis - http://justinisis.blogspot.com/ - whose two collections of stories, I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like (2011), and Welcome to the Arms Race (2015) are both published by Chômu Press: http://chomupress.com/
Jeremy Reed - http://www.jeremyreed.co.uk/
Zdravka Evtimova - http://www.contemporarybulgarianwriters.com/1-writers/evtimova-zdravka/
Brendan Connell - whose novel, Clark (2016), is singled out for special mention: http://www.snugglybooks.co.uk/clark/
About the Author:
Quentin S. Crisp was born in 1972, in North Devon, UK. He studied Japanese at the University of Durham and graduated in 2000. He has had fiction published by Tartarus Press, PS Publishing, Eibonvale Press and others. He currently resides in Bexleyheath, and is editor for Chômu Press.
Sherds Podcast
The House of Hunger was originally published in by Heinemann in 1978. The book is a collection of harrowing, autobiographical short stories in which Marechera’s experiences both in his native Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and as a university student at Oxford, are channeled into a psychedelic cascade of blistering imagery and broken stream-of-consciousness narratives. In his own words, writing in English - his second language - rather than the Shona he grew up speaking, meant confronting the inherent racism of the language, “discarding grammar, throwing syntax out, subverting images within […] developing torture chambers of irony and sarcasm, gas ovens of limitless black resonance”.
Over the course of the episode, we discuss the violence and vibrancy of Marechera’s prose, consider his attitude to the newly independent Zimbabwe, and his torturous love affair with the English language.
Bibliography:
'African Doppelganger: Hybridity and Identity in the Work of Dambudzo Marechera' by David Buuck in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 28, No. 2, Autobiography and African Literature (Summer, 1997), pp. 118-131
'On Dambudzo Marechera: The Life and Times of an African Writer' by Helon Habila in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 82, No. 1, A Special Report: Aids in Africa (Winter 2006), pp. 251-260
‘Reveling in Genre: An Interview with China Miéville’ in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, The British SF Boom (Nov., 2003), pp. 355-373
