Deconstructing Ban Ki-Moon's visit to Namibia

Deconstructing Ban-Ki

Moon’s visit to Namibia

By Moses Magadza

WINDHOEK (June 24, 2004) - Ban Ki-Moon, the eighth Secretary General of the United Nations, will be visiting Namibia  from 24-25 June, 2014. It will be a rare visit in 24 years by a UN Secretary General to the country that enchained the attention of the intergovernmental organisation during its liberation struggle.

The relationship between the United Nations and Namibia is special and goes back many years.  The UN played a seminal role in Namibia’s independence. Expectations are that the visit by Ban Ki-Moon will give him an opportunity to appreciate the immense progress Namibia has made since independence.

History records that before independence Namibia – which was called South West Africa then – was given to South Africa within a trusteeship mandate. Later, South Africa’s mandate was challenged in the 1960s and the United Nations (UN) is credited for leading that legal struggle as well as for galvanising international consensus around Namibia’s struggle for independence.

In addition to that political leadership which was led by Africa within the councils of the UN, the UN took measures to adopt the country as a problem of the UN. In those days, the UN had a dedicated council for Namibia that was responsible for the tutelage of the fledgling nation. The UN set up an Institute for Namibia which current Prime Minister Dr Geingob headed in Lusaka, Zambia.

Ambassador Musinga Bandora. Photo: Moses Magadza

In an exclusive interview, Ambassador Musinga Bandora, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Namibia, said the mandate of the UN Institute was to train Namibia’s future leaders and technocrats. Additionally, negotiations within the context of Resolution 435, which paved the way for Namibia’s independence, were conducted within the framework of the UN.

 “At the political leadership, negotiations and building human capacity for Namibia, the UN led the way,” Bandora said.

He said given the association of the UN with Namibia’s independence, 24 years later, it was opportune for the UN Secretary General to visit, see and learn from Namibia about the challenges that the country has faced since independence, as well as to appreciate progress made.

Bandora opined that the fact that it had taken many years for a UN SG to visit Namibia again was a good sign that things have been moving relatively smoothly in the country.

 “Unfortunately, it’s conflicts that attract the attention and the engagement of a UN Secretary General. If a country is peaceful and managing its activities well, it would be least on the agenda of the United Nations Secretary General.”

He said it was good that the SG had made time to visit Namibia.

“Good performers should be appreciated and commended.”

 

Rare Opportunity

Ban Kin-Moon’s visit presents an opportunity for Namibia, as represented by President Pohamba, to engage the SG face-to-face with respect to the partnership between the UN and the country. The visit will enable Namibia to share with the UN SG the challenges it faces both as an individual country within its own development context, and as part of the SADC region and the African continent.

President Hifikepunye Pohamba

President Pohamba is the Chairperson of the SADC Organ for Peace and Security. In that capacity, he has led SADC efforts in terms of Peace and Security in the Great Lakes, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), were SADC forms the bulk of the UN intervention force that is stabilising the DRC.

SADC has also led efforts that have paved the way for political negotiations in Madagascar. The regional bloc is observing elections in the region and has just observed elections in Malawi. It will be involved in forthcoming elections in Mozambique, Lesotho and Namibia.

Bandora said SADC had a very key role to play within the region and Namibia being the chair of the SADC Organ for Defence, Peace and Security, had a specific role to play. Within this context, Ban Ki-Moon’s visit may present an opportunity for Namibia and the UN to explore partnerships to see how the two entities can work together to consolidate peace and democratic transition in SADC in particular and Africa in general.

Apart from involvement in what is happening in the Great Lakes, Africa, through the African Union Peace and Security Council, is battling with crises in the Horn of Africa, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali to name but a few hot spots.

Ban Ki-Moon’s visit is happening also on the eve of the 23rd AU summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The AU is expected to discuss issues of peace and security on the continent’s agenda, which forms the theme for the AU summit which will be Food Security and Agriculture. Beyond that, Africa is looking at the post 2015 development agenda.

“This (Ban Ki-Moon’s visit) is an opportunity for Namibia to discuss with the UN SG what the views of Namibia are. President Pohamba is a member of the High Level AU Committee on the post 2015 agenda which recently met and devised the African Common Position on the post 2015 Development Agenda,” Bandora said.

 Lots to show

Bandora said Ban Ki-Moon’s visit places Namibia’s successes under the spotlight.

“Namibia has done well. It has moved from being a least developed country, to being a middle income country. Namibia is widely regarded as an example of good economic management, reconciliation, national stability, human rights and press freedom. The country therefore has a lot to share with the SG and the rest of the world.”

Great Expectations

While this is essentially a visit to the Head of State, well-known University of Namibia lecturer and social commentator Mr Ndumba Kwanyamah hopes that, time permitting, Ban Ki-Moon would be able to see around Windhoek and appreciate the challenges of housing, sanitation, as well as to get an appreciation of the inequalities that exist in the country notwithstanding its middle-income status.



Social commentator Mr. Ndumba Kwanyamah

Kwanyamah described the impending visit as very significant for the country, stressing that Namibia is a “baby of the UN.”

“I am not underestimating the importance of the liberation struggle and the war that was waged, but we also have to know that we got our independence because of (UN) Resolution 435 which paved the way for Namibia’s first democratic elections. It is significant because this was the first success story of the UN in terms of maintaining peace and stability. It is, therefore, good for him to come and see where Namibia is now in comparison to where it used to be before independence and where the country is headed.”

Kwanyamah said he hoped that Ban Ki-Moon would walk through Katutura, talk to ordinary people and see the daily challenges that people are facing especially in informal settlements.

“It would be nice if he gets to see the reality on the ground. Yes, Namibia is a success story for the UN but like other countries, it still faces many social and economic challenges that need to be addressed. I hope he will be frank and emphasise the importance of fighting poverty and high income inequality.”

Uneasy Head

It was King Henry in William Shakespeare’s Henry The Fourth, who famously said: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” One could say and still be right: “Uneasy lies the head of the person who heads the UN.”

In the six years that he has been at the helm of the United Nations which brings together 192 member nations from around the world, Ban Ki-Moon has not had it easy. During his tenure, there has been a resurgence of internal and inter-state conflicts across the world. He has presided over the UN Secretariat during wars in Iraq, Syria, the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes, the Sahel, Libya and other hot spots.

Peace and security have been perhaps his biggest challenges.  He has also presided over the UN Secretariat at a time of transition. The tail end of the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is happening under his watch. Although much of the work was done under Koffi Anan, the evaluation of the MDGs as well as the conversation around the post 2015 Development Agenda are taking place during his tenure.

Ban Ki-Moon is overseeing the transformation of the UN Secretariat and other institutions within the UN system including the whole gamut about delivering as one, as well as strengthening UN coordination at country levels. Overall, one can say that he has had a very challenging time.

Nevertheless, some commentators see Ban Ki-Moon as a hands-on person who is passionate and hard-working, traits which they say have translated into effective leadership.

Email: moses.magadza@gmail.com

 

A moment with writer Brian Chikwava

Harare North author Brian Chikwava says not the new Dambudzo Marechera

Brian Chikwava of Harare North fame

 

 

 

Passage from Harare North page 4:

Whatever they reason for detaining me, them immigration people let me go after eight days. I don’t grudge them because they is only doing they graft. But my relatives, they show worryful attitude. I have to wait another two days for my cousin’s wife to come and fetch me. The story that I tell the immigration people is tighter than thief’s anus. Me I tell them I have been harass by them boys in dark glasses because I am youth member of the opposition party. This is not trying to shame our government in any way, but if you don’t spin them smooth jazz numbers then immigration people is never going to give you chance to even sniff first step into Queen’s land. That is they style, I have hear.

****

 

 

Moses Magadza: Do you think that you are the new Dambudzo Marechera? This has

been said over and over about you?

 

Brian Chikwava: Oh, I think that is more of a curse than anything - being asked to wear Marechera's shoes can be embarrassing if your feet are tiny.

 

Moses Magadza: Those who say you are the new Marechera, what are their

Claims? What have you heard them say?

 

Brian Chikwava: I have not heard much more than the casually thrown line. I'm sure people mean it as some kind of joke.

 

Moses Magadza: Why do you call England "Harare North?

 

Brian Chikwava: Zimbabweans in London are the ones who call London Harare North; I simply appropriated that.

 

Moses Magadza: What inspired the writing of the novel Harare North?

                                                                             

Brian Chikwava: Living far away from familiar environments sometimes gets the imagination working in all sorts of ways to get to grips with the new environment; I think this was my way of getting to grips with London.

 

Moses Magadza: The narrator in Harare North uses broken English or patios

consistently. How do you manage this?

 

Brian Chikwava: It took a lot of painful rewrites to get the language and voice consistent. Luckily I survived the process.

Moses Magadza: Tell me, what are you doing in London?

 

Brian Chikwava: I'm trying to cook up some writing project, as it is.

 

Moses Magadza:You refer to ‘Green Bombaz’. Infact, your main character is a former

‘Green Bomber’. Are you a political writer?

 

Brian Chikwava: No, the book was conceived more as a way of studying trauma and mental disintegration than as a political novel.

 Moses Magadza: Which writers influence you?

 Brian Chikwava: My weakness is that I tend to be influenced by the last writer I read. Right now I feel influenced by the late Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, having just read Pedro Paramo.

 Moses Magadza: What do you think about Zimbabwean literature at the moment?

 Brian Chikwava: I would like to think that given the number of young writers who have found the confidence to put pen to paper over the past few years, Zim lit is moving in the right direction.

 Moses Magadza: What do you think about Zimbabwean literature from the Diaspora by

writers like you, Petina Gappa and others?

 Brian Chikwava: Interestingly diasporan literature will always draw from where the writer comes from; that is what makes it Zimbabwean too. Without that heritage to draw from it becomes something else.

 Moses Magadza: You are a jazz musician. How does this affect or influence your writing?

 

Brian Chikwava:  These days it seems more of a burden - finding time for both is a torrid affair.

 

Moses Magadza: You won the prestigious Caine Prize with your short story. How did

it affect your confidence and drive as a writer?

 

Brian Chikwava: As a new writer, any recognition, however insignificant, is always good and goes a long way towards building confidence in your work.

 

Moses Magadza: Are writers born or made? Is your being a writer in addition to

being an engineer a result of nature or nurture?

 

Brian Chikwava: I think anyone can be taught to write well, subject to limitations. But no one can teach you how to be a virtuoso writer.

 

Moses Magadza: How do you relax?

Brian Chikwava: I take very long walks; I find it clears my mind up.

 Moses Magadza:How widely available is your book?

 Brian Chikwava: There are number of countries in Africa where it is still not available. Hopefully that will have been addressed by the time the paperback comes out in April next year.

 

HOW ABOUT 'MOTHER OF AFRICAN LITERATURE'?

Of sweet homelessness and other issues

How about ‘mother of’? asks exiled Zim writer

 

STRAIGHT TALK: Chenjerai Hove

A top Zimbabwean poet, novelist and essayist says the practice of branding men ‘fathers of’ certain exploits is dangerous and can contaminate the minds of the world’s men and boys, entrenching patriarchy in the process. Chenjerai Hove, who now lives in exile in Norway and is noted for his deep sensitivity to gender roles, expressed this view in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with journalist Moses Magadza. Asked for his take on the raging debate on whether the late Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic Chinua Achebe of ‘Things Fall Apart’ fame could be regarded as the ‘father’ of contemporary African literature, Hove said the whole debate was dangerous and unhelpful.

 

Moses Magadza: It has been said in some circles that Chinua Achebe is the father of African literature. What is your take on this? And, who could be the father of Zimbabwean literature?

Chenjerai Hove: This idea of ‘father of’ and ‘father of’ is really nonsense. Chinua Achebe is a great writer, one of the most vibrant voices of the African continent. He came on the literary scene, wrote his masterpieces, and left our literature and society probably much better than he found them. That is the task of a writer; to write well, to challenge society with new values, to show readers that the world could be looked at in different ways. In other words, to create a new identity for society, for a nation, a continent. Achebe does not have to be ‘the father of’ anything.

People are obsessed with the idea of ‘father of.’ How about ‘mother of’?   Such concepts lead to dictatorships on our continent. Concepts like ‘father of the nation’ are dangerous. Once you call someone ‘father of the nation’ or some weird words like that, you give the impression that life should be looked at in terms of male and female power relations.

There is no ‘father of Zimbabwean literature’ but there is a chain of Zimbabwean writers who came and contributed artistically, historically and even geographically to our literature. Nobody fathered anyone in the process. They came, wrote beautiful books, contributed to our imagination, and gave the baton stick to younger ones to continue the dream.

 Moses Magadza: You come across as deeply sensitive to gender roles. Indeed, in your work, mothers are supreme. How do you explain this?

Chenjerai Hove: Don’t forget that I was for nine months part of a woman’s body, nine months. Everyone is like that unless they were born prematurely. But all my writing is an analysis of power relations, power in all its manifestations. The good marketplace for such a study is the relationship between a man and a woman, husband and wife, mother and son, etc., and the values which society teaches us as we grow in order to make us ‘real men’ while the women are taught to become ‘good wives.’

Also when I was growing up, I was very close to my mother and my aunt. They were both unique in their own way. My mother was a story-teller. She selected her stories extremely carefully, leaving out those which glorify the stupidities of men in preference to those which celebrated the achievements of women and girls. My aunt, VaMakumbi, was one of the sharpest political brains I have ever come across. Without any formal education to her name, she was the sharpest critic of the colonial political system I ever came across. She understood the relations between wives and husbands.  She was also poetic in her analysis.

In terms of understanding the meaning of profound human experiences, I have come to know women have a better grasp of the complexity of life than men. Men are usually pretentiously full of themselves, but women suffer and endure quietly, managing to bring out the best in other human beings, their children. But that is not to say there are no horrible women. They exist, but in terms of numbers and acts, men have a big deficit.

Look at how the women work in the villages. I did project years back in which I went around taking pictures of men and women around the country, in the countryside. I never came across a woman walking down the village with nothing in their hands or on the back or on their head. A baby on the back, water or basket on the head, a hoe in the hands.

Moses Magadza: For some years you worked as a teacher then editor. To what extent and in what ways has that impacted your own writing?

Chenjerai Hove: To write is to teach, to create themes and messages for society, to shape and re-shape the language. Every time I taught in high school, I tried to make my students discover the joys of language, that language is beautiful, the glory of words, phrases and sentences.

When I worked for many years as educational and literary editor, the educationist in me was always at the forefront. I edited the works of many young writers, helping them along, selecting the juicy parts of their works to show them how they had the potential and should not lapse. I motivated many writers who are now really big in our national literature.

As editor, I was writing my own works as well, studying as well, and teaching part-time. Human interaction is always healthy for a writer at a certain point. But at the same time the solitude of a writer is supreme.

Moses Magadza: What are your thoughts on making a living as a writer? Is it possible? Do you live solely on your writing?

Chenjerai Hove: It is hard for any writer to live solely from their writing. I spend most of my time teaching and writing newspaper columns. Reading tours and performances usually earn the writer more money than the writer’s books.

Moses Magadza:  Once upon a time you were writer in residence at the University of Zimbabwe. I notice that you are still attached to various universities. How has working with academic institutions impacted on your worldview and your writing?

 Chenjerai Hove: For me, working with universities enables me to meet young students, to engage with them in debates and discussions. It also allows me to interact with youths and other professors about literature in general and my own books in particular. It is always refreshing to meet young minds which challenge me in terms of my own worldview and literary practices.

At the UZ I worked with a vibrant group of young aspiring writers. Most of them have since published and they are great names in Zimbabwean literature. I am glad they found my presence inspiring, but I appreciate how they also inspired me. I wrote ‘Shadows’ and ‘Ancestors’ while at the UZ.  I also completed my poetry anthology, ‘Rainbows in the Dust’.

 The world is always changing, and students are at the forefront of exploring those possible changes. It helps a writer to continue to revamp his vision. With young students, the writer cannot take anything for granted. They challenge established ideas as they search for ways to replace old ideas with new ones. Students are honest dreamers. They are not afraid to be wrong, which is the basis of creativity. They doubt everything, and literature is also a celebration of the human capacity to doubt old and new values.

 Moses Magadza:  What are your views and what is your advice on writers’ residences or fellowships? Can Africa afford them? Does Africa need them?

 Chenjerai Hove: A country which has fellowships for its writers knows where its heartbeat is.  When a writer is in a university, it is not only encouragement for the writer to continue creating; it is inspiration to the nation to say it acknowledges the creative potential of a writer, his or her contribution to the national vision of a country.

 If a country cannot afford fellowships for writers and other artists, it runs a big risk: silence. The mistaken emphasis on sciences at the expense of the arts is damagingly dangerous to the creative realm of any country. When all is said and done, it is the creativity of a country which will mark its fame.  If a nation cannot afford to nurture its visionaries, it will be a dry nation with no voices recorded by those who heard society’s cries or laughter as it underwent change.

 Literature is a search for possibilities, a search for the dreams which make a nation worth its salt. The story-tellers of the land are the most subtle historians of the nation. Writers see, record and warn the nation about its human and general social conditions. So, it is not a matter of whether the country can afford writers’ fellowships. It is a question of whether a nation can have the luxury of not affording to nourish its own creative tree. There are countries that ignored their artists, and they had to pay for it through imposed silence and deafness.

 Unfortunately, sometimes African governments think when they give a fellowship to a writer, that writer should dedicate his creativity to praise-singing the president or the nation. Writers are not public relations officers of any government or institution. They create and rebel, if they so choose. To write is, indeed, to rebel, to protest, to challenge the system and its established and ‘accepted’ values.

 Moses Magadza:  What are your views on literary biographies and memoirs?

 Chenjerai Hove: Memoirs and literary biographies, oh, my god. I feel autobiographies are the worst. They tend to degenerate into self-praise and self-aggrandizement. Well-researched biographies and thoughtful memoirs are usually exciting to read. Usually biographies end up creating conflict between the author and the subject. I have enjoyed reading some fantastic memoirs, really.

 Moses Magadza: Some people have remarked on the peculiarity of the title of your memoir ‘(Miami) homeless sweet home’. How do you reconcile homelessness and sweetness?

 Chenjerai Hove: It is not a matter of reconciling them. I juxtapose them as contradictory pieces of memory. The irony of that contradiction is what fascinates me: In my country, I was at home, minus the sweetness. In exile, I am safe, and nobody bothers about me and what I write. That is the homelessness which is not actually so sweet.

 When society doesn’t really bother about a writer and what he writes, that is homelessness. But when, like back home, (some people) take an exaggerated interest in what a writer writes, that that is bitter-sweet sweet home. So, those words of the title are celebrations of my homelessness, of a nomadic life, of owning nothing which does not fit into a suitcase. You see, it can be quite ‘sweet’ to own nothing of substance. I own my books and clothes, and my laptop, of course, in a country where materialism is the first god worshipped at the altar every day.

 Moses Magadza:  What, in your view, sets you apart from your contemporaries as a writer?

 Chenjerai Hove: What sets me apart is that I am Chenjerai Hove. I am an individual, not a photocopy of anybody or any writer anywhere. I am not an imitation of anybody living or dead.

 Moses Magadza:  You have always been working with younger writers. What is your advice to aspiring writers?

 Chenjerai Hove:  I believe in young writers. They carry the flame of our literature. My advice has always been: your mission is to write well, no matter what you are writing about, write it well. To write is to think and if we keep on writing, we keep on thinking for our country, about our country and society, about the world. The vision of a writer should be a permanent one, not a temporary piece of flattery to some transient god or man.

Moses Magadza: How do you regard the state of Zimbabwean literature at the moment? Any new trends that you see? Any new voices that you respect? Any regrets?

 Chenjerai Hove: Zimbabwean literature has probably been going through some kind of drought. I think literature tends to go through those periods of what you could call ‘the boom.’ After independence, we had a great boom, then a short drought in the mid-80s, then a big boom in the 90s. The economic drought also led to a cultural and artistic drought. But it is also a time for the writers to make notes, to reflect and refine their art.

 Moses Magadza: I notice that young writer, Tshuma has named her recent novel Shadows. You also have a Shadows that came out years ago. Were you affected by that at all and how was it resolved, if at all?

 Chenjerai Hove: It is within the law to have books sharing the same title. I think Tshuma did not know that there was a book titled Shadows. It seems when someone mentioned it to her, I understand she sounded a bit agitated about it. There was no need for that. I should think ‘the more the merrier’ is a good way to look at it.

Moses Magadza: In terms of writing, what are you busy with these days and what can readers expect from you?

 Chenjerai Hove: I never tell what I am writing at any one time. I have finished an anthology of poetry which I sent to a publisher a few months ago. But for now, it is simply enough to let me keep the secret of my writing to myself. Every new work I am working on is like a secret lover. You don’t go about shouting and telling your neighbours about your secret love.

 

Moses Magadza: What has exile done to you as a person and as a writer?

Chenjerai Hove: Exile has allowed me to live on, even though the circumstances are not the same. I am able to look at my country from a distance and reflect on its beauty as well as its ugliness. One Greek philosopher said, ‘All action weakens contemplation.’ It means being in the thick of things might not enable you to see what is happening to you.

 

AFRICA'S MOST FERAL MIND

Dambudzo Marechera’s undying legacy

 

Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera, who once famously told people to let him write and drink his beer, has been dead for 25 years but his life and work continue to hold the imagination of multitudes of people. Moving Spirit: The Legacy of Dambudzo Marechera in the 21st Century, the latest book on the writer, was published in May. Marechera was an exceptionally talented writer who has become a cult figure in Zimbabwe and abroad. After being expelled from the then University Rhodesia (now University of Zimbabwe) in the early 1970s, Marechera was admitted to Oxford University but was expelled for unruly behaviour. Critics hailed him as a genius and his most famous book, The House of Hunger (1978) won the prestigious Guardian First Book Award, making Marechera the first African to win the award.

As he lies buried in Zimbabwe, Marechera and his work have collectively become a banquet of literature, attracting academic scholars and ordinary people from far and wide. Emmanuel Sigauke, who teaches English in the United States of America and has studied Marechera’s work in depth, says that many people are drawn to Marechera by the way he exercised his art, the risk-taking, the total commitment to it, the brilliant intelligence, and the quality of the writing. In this wide-ranging interview, multiple award-winning Zimbabwean journalist Moses Magadza interviews Dobrota Pucherova (PhD) who compiled the book about its purpose, omissions and additions on the life and works of Marechera.

 

Moses Magadza: How familiar are you with Dambudzo Marechera the man and Dambudzo Marechera the works?

Dobrota Pucherova: I first “encountered” Marechera while doing my PhD on southern African writing at Oxford. I did research on him and he became one chapter in my PhD thesis which includes writers such as Bessie Head, Yvonne Vera, Ingrid Jonker, Wopko Jensma, Mongane Serote, Kabelo Sello Duiker, Ishtiyaq Shukri and Achmat Dangor. The thesis has now been published as The Ethics of Dissident Desire in Southern African Writing (Trier, Germany: WVT, 2011) and deals with literary instances of desire as a boundary-breaking energy that can contravene the segregated spaces and bodies of southern African history. Concerning Marechera the man – who can say they “know” Marechera? He remains an elusive person for me as much as for others, although I have been lucky to speak to several people who have known him personally.

 Moses Magadza: You are an academic and have studied Marechera extensively. What drew you to the Marechera phenomenon?

Dobrota Pucherova: Marechera’s writing expresses very well the desire for mental freedom that concerned me when studying southern African authors. He believed that overcoming oppositional identity discourses and freeing the imagination to create space for individual reinvention could achieve true liberation from oppression. At the same time, Marechera’s vision of the political as sexual and the sexual as political provided new insights into power relationships in colonial and postcolonial conditions. Last, but not least, his flair for language and his infectious humour make his books very pleasurable to read.

Moses Magadza: What inspired this new book on Marechera?

Dobrota Pucherova: The answer to this is a bit long-winded, so bear with me. When I was writing my thesis chapter on Marechera, alongside I wrote a play based mainly on Black Sunlight.

To me, this novel is immensely comical and at the same time sophisticated, and I felt that it has been misunderstood due to Marechera’s unwillingness to edit his work, as James Currey has documented. In adapting the novel for the stage, I wanted to bring forth its audacity and deeply sophisticated comedy. The novel’s challenging humour, its intertextuality with European modernist texts such as Beckett, Conrad and Kafka, and cryptic references to Orwell, Bakunin and Sartre, among others, were what made the novel to be perceived as “difficult”; on the stage, I felt, the novel’s meanings could be literally “performed” and come to life. In addition, its parodic references to Oxford University made it particularly suitable for an Oxford production. And so, when I decided to produce the play in Oxford, I felt: why not organize an entire festival on Marechera? The festival, which took place on May 15-17, 2009, was an international multi-media event that included film, theatre, fiction, poetry, painting, photography, memoir and scholarly essays, all inspired by Marechera’s work and life. Information about the event can be found at www.marecheracelebration.org. The book is the proceedings of the festival, with a few additional pieces. Julie Cairnie, who has co-edited the book with me, was a participant at the Oxford Celebration.

Moses Magadza: What did you set out to achieve through this book? Have you succeeded?

Dobrota Pucherova: I adapted Marechera’s prose for the stage because I felt that the singularity of his engagement with language demads an active, inventive, performative response to do it justice. In other words, I feel scholarship can engage with Marechera in one way, by applying a particular theoretical lens to his texts, but art can do it differently, by experiencing his texts, which can bring new insights into the reality around us. As the contributions in the book demonstrate, Marechera’s work invites reinvention: performative and dissident, it plays with meaning and engenders new forms, myths and epistemologies. Marechera inspires us to seek new ways of experiencing reality. The book is about the irrational force of art that moves us, but often cannot be explained, and we seek to respond to it through art. In this sense, I think we have succeeded.

Moses Magadza: What would you say were the biggest challenges you encountered when you worked on this project?

Dobrota Pucherova: The biggest challenge was to find a publisher. Several academic publishers were afraid of this book, as it is not a strictly scholarly volume, but rather a “big baggy monster” that includes fiction, poetry, memoir, pictures etc. Eventually, I was very lucky to meet Dr. Veit Hopf of LIT Verlag, Berlin, who offered to take on the project and suggested to include the DVD, which contains the multi-media presented at the Oxford festival, as well as bonus archival material.

Moses Magadza: Essays by Dambudzo Marechera’s contemporaries like Musaemura Zimunya, Stanley Nyamfukudza, and Charles Mungoshi are conspicuously absent from your compilation. How do you explain this?

Dobrota Pucherova: The majority of contributions in the book were presented at the Oxford Celebration. The people you mention did not respond to the call for papers, which was widely distributed. Stanley Nyamfukudza was invited to come present his memories of Marechera at the festival, but he declined. I met with him privately after the festival, however, and he explained that he does not like to dig out old memories, for reasons of his own. It was therefore very nice of him to at least privately share some of these memories for the benefit of me and Ery Nzaramba, who is making a film about Dambudzo.

Moses Magadza: Some people think this is the chink in this book’s armor. What impact might this omission have on this book?

Dobrota Pucherova: No book on Marechera can possibly be complete – that is all I can add. There are other famous contemporaries of Marechera who are not included in the book.

Moses Magadza: Why does this book rely heavily on memoirs and personal essays rather than fully researched academic essays?

Dobrota Pucherova: The book reflects mainly the contributions presented at the Oxford festival. Several academics who presented academic essays in Oxford did not eventually submit completed papers for the book, so we had to work with what we had. However, we don’t think this is the book’s weakness. There have been several scholarly volumes on Marechera (a new scholarly book on Marechera is coming out this year with James Currey) but there has not yet been a book just like this. The multi-media pieces are accompanied by artists’ essays about how and why Marechera inspires them.

Moses Magadza: What new insights does this book provide into the life and work of Dambudzo Marechera?

Dobrota Pucherova: This book is not so much about Marechera, but about how Marechera inspires others. I believe it provides many new insights into Marechera’s relationships with his contemporaries, with other authors and with his fans and inspirees. For example, Carolyn Hart’s essay explores Marechera’s relationship with African-American postmodern writers, while Katja Kellerer’s piece examines the intertextualities between “The House of Hunger” and Ignatius Mabasa’s Mapenzi (1999). There are also two pieces on the Marechera cult. The memoir section provides many interesting insights into Marechera’s personal and professional relationships, including his love relationships. 

Moses Magadza: This new book comes with rare, archival materials that include audiovisuals such as Marechera’s ranting at the Berlin Conference in 1979, and his speech on African writing he gave in Harare in 1986. How important and in what way is this archival material?

Dobrota Pucherova: This material was added as a bonus to the main DVD material – the creative contributions by filmmakers, musicians and actors. It was offered to us by Flora Veit-Wild who wanted to make it available to Marechera fans and we think it will be of interest, as it shows Marechera in various periods in his life. For me, seeing Marechera interviewed by Ray Mawerera in Harare in 1984 was a completely different experience than watching him drunk and deeply depressed in the London squat as he appears in Chris Austin’s film. In the Ray Mawerera interview, Marechera is an entirely different person – calm, communicative and composed.

Moses Magadza: After this fascinating book - complete, as I have said, with archival material, footnotes and references as well as Flora Wild’s seemingly valedictory piece – what else remains to know about Dambudzo Marechera?

Dobrota Pucherova: I believe no book on Marechera can be complete and I am sure there will be other books on Marechera. Helon Habila’s biography of Marechera is due to be published next year, and I look forward to reading it.

Moses Magadza: For you as a scholar and writer, was this book a once-off undertaking or the opening gambit of an on-going series on Marechera?

Dobrota Pucherova: To organize the festival took a year and a half, to bring out this book took three years. I am not currently planning a series on Marechera, since I am working on other African writers and thinkers at the moment: Nuruddin Farah, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

Moses Magadza: What, in your view, sets Marechera distinctly apart from his contemporaries and today’s writers?

Dobrota Pucherova: Marechera reacted to the Marxist and nationalist tradition in African writing with cosmopolitanism and post-racialism at a time in Zimbabwean history when it was most controversial to do so. He described the violence of the colony and post colony with a liberating laughter and dared to laugh even at the power presumptions of the anti-colonial struggle. Identifying language’s key role in upholding systems of power, he explodes language to create new meanings and paradigms. Moreover, Marechera dared to go to those places in the human psyche where no other black African writer before him had gone. Other have done so after Marechera – of these, I would mention Yvonne Vera and Kabelo Sello Duiker, who similarly explore the dark spaces of the mind and whose highly poetic but authentic language sets them apart from other African writers. It is very sad that both of these have died young, just like Dambudzo.