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
Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren was originally published in 1975. Since its publication, Dhalgren has had its fair share of proponents and enemies - it has been called both the best and the worst book ever to come out of the field of science fiction. Over the course of its eight-hundred pages, we follow our main character, the Kid, as he wanders listlessly through devastated city of Bellona, located somewhere in the United States on the border between utopia and dystopia. It is a city where time dilates and contracts, buildings spontaneously combust, obscuring mists curl through the streets. And here, all society’s misfits and outcasts have gathered under its twin moons.
In this conversation we discuss the extent to which Dhalgren can be considered science fiction, examine the role of its metafictional games, and think about its presentation of racial and sexual politics.
The readings in this episode are by Daniel Mills, host of the true crime podcast, These Dark Mountains: https://thesedarkmountains.com/
Bibliography:
‘The Convergence of Postmodern Innovative Fiction and Science Fiction: An Encounter with Samuel R. Delany's Technotopia’ by Teresa L. Ebert Poetics Today, Vol. 1, No. 4, Narratology II: The Fictional Text and the Reader (Duke University Press, Summer, 1980)
‘Rites of Reversal: Double Consciousness in Delany's Dhalgren’ by Mary Kay Bray in lack American Literature Forum, Vol. 18, No. 2, Science Fiction Issue (Summer, 1984)
‘Playing at Birth: Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren’ by Todd A Comer in Journal of Narrative Theory, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Summer, 2005)
https://lithub.com/dont-romanticize-science-fiction-an-interview-with-samuel-delany/
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
