Recent criticism has claimed Marechera's unconventionality represents an anomaly in Zimbabwean literature. Problematically, this implies a fundamental separation of the author from the concerns, styles and strategies of other writers. In this thesis I argue, on the contrary, that Marechera demonstrates a propensity for dialogue with other Zimbabwean writers. Moreover, such a dialogue is crucial to the development of a critical discourse capable of addressing elements of contradiction. Returning Marechera to the heart of debate in Zimbabwean literature, the thesis focuses on the meaning of his transgressions, alongside selected texts by other Zimbabwean authors. These include Doris Lessing, Charles Mungoshi, Shimmer Chinodya, Yvonne Vera, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nevanji Madanhire, Chenjerai Hove, and Stanley Nyamfukudza. I also consider the relevance of lesser-known women's writing and queer narratives, and Marechera's meaning to anti-racist, feminist, and gay liberation initiatives. As a background to my analysis, I ascertain discursive links in an historical sequence of sexual regulation. I argue that the 'black peril' panics in settler society (fear of interracial sex), the rounding-up of single women deemed to be prostitutes in the 1980s, and the anti-gay campaigns of the mid-1990s are all underpinned by a moral discourse which continuously reproduces an ideology of racial, social and sexual hygiene. Marechera's writing refuses this ideology, I claim, but his transgressions are rarely straightforward and frequently misunderstood. His treatment of interracial sexuality deeply problematises conventional concepts and representations of racial identity: his controversial characterisations of women subvert traditional patriarchalist iconographies of womanhood; and his treatment of queer issues (unprecedented in Zimbabwean literature) destabilises assumptions of heteronormativity. Despite such radicalism, however, Marechera's writing, moving beyond transgression. remains notoriously inconsistent and therefore resistant, I argue, to assimilation by progressive political projects. Although Marechera complicates debates, dialogue with the author is crucial, I nevertheless maintain, precisely for this reason.

La Bible est un des premiers livres traduits dans la plupart des langues d'Afrique subsaharienne et l'imagerie qui lui est associée a par conséquent joué un rôle essentiel dans la constitution des imaginaires littéraires propres à chaque région. Parmi toutes les figures de l'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament, le Christ occupe une place à part, car il est la source de toute rédemption et un personnage qui vaut par son ambivalence, au croisement du religieux et du politique. Représentation en creux construite par des discours multiples, il est à la fois ou successivement un révolutionnaire qui se bat contre l'impérialisme romain ou un collaborateur qui rend à César ce qui lui appartient. La résonance de cette figure dans les œuvres de Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) et Tchicaya U Tam'si (1931-1988) correspond donc à une réflexion sur les rapports qu'entretiennent la religion, la littérature et le politique pendant et au-delà de la période coloniale au Zimbabwe et au Congo. En effet, ces deux auteurs occupent une position surplombante dans leurs pays respectifs et, quoique considérés par certains comme hermétiques ou trop Européens, ils ont durablement marqué les générations suivantes qui ont vu en eux des précurseurs, voire le « père de notre rêve » pour Tchicaya. Dans cette perspective qui englobe la théorie et l'histoire littéraire, le messianisme comme dynamique qui fait naître des figures christiques entraîne une réflexion sur la place du personnage dans le temps et dans l'espace. Celle-ci, enfin, prend tout son sens grâce au choix d'un corpus qui englobe roman, poésie et théâtre, afin de relier différentes approches de la figure christique, pour mieux questionner le rôle de pivot qu'elle occupe dans les deux œuvres. / In most African langages, the Bible is one of the first books ever translated. As a consequence, the images it conveys have played a prominent part in the literary imagery endemic to each region of the continent. Among all the various characters depicted in the Old and the New Testament, Jesus Christ is center stage, since he is the origin of all redemption, as well as an ambivalent character standing at the crossroads of religion and politics. As an implicit character constructed by various discourses, he represents simultaneously or successively a rebel fighting roman imperialism or a collaboraor who gives unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar. This character finds an echo in the works of Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) and Tchicaya U Tam'si (1931-1988) as he raises questions on the connexions between religion, literature and politics during and beyond colonial times in Zimbabwe and Congo. As a matter of fact, both authors occupy a prominent place in their respective literary landscape. Although they have been disparaged for being overly hermetic or European, they have left a lasting impression on the following generations of writers who consider them as precursors or even « father of our dream » as far as Tchicaya is concerned. Following this approach which combines literary theory and literary history, a reflection on the nature of characters is prompted by the conception of messianism as a dynamics which creates christ-like figures and positions them both in time and space. Finally, by chosing a syllabus including narratives, theatrical plays and poetry, we've attempted to give this type of character its full meaning while questioning the pivotal role it plays for both authors.

Submitted by JÚLIO HEBER SILVA (julioheber@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-11-23T18:26:44Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nayara Cristina Rodrigues de Andrade - 2016.pdf: 1839680 bytes, checksum: 845d47c8f4cb849d7e0c7aa9c84459fd (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2016-11-30T15:41:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nayara Cristina Rodrigues de Andrade - 2016.pdf: 1839680 bytes, checksum: 845d47c8f4cb849d7e0c7aa9c84459fd (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-11-30T15:41:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nayara Cristina Rodrigues de Andrade - 2016.pdf: 1839680 bytes, checksum: 845d47c8f4cb849d7e0c7aa9c84459fd (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-09-29 / The aim of this research and of the dissertation resulting from it is the analysis of the construction of the representation of reality in the book The House of Hunger (1978), by Dambudzo Marechera. Prominent writer from Zimbabwe, inscribed in the African Literature in English, his works do not have yet translations into Portuguese. In his own country, he has suffered several accusations for refusing to write according to the Preand Post-Independence national call to the production of works under the 19th century Realism and the 20th century Socialist Realism. His rejection of these “traditions” has resulted in a critical fortune that sometimes vilifies his works for being antirealist and anti-mimetic. This work focuses primarily on tracing how the concept of mimesis already presented differences in Ancient Greece, through Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas, and how the contribution of the theorist Erich Auerbach (2013) collaborates for the analysis and understanding of the construction of the representation of reality in the works by Dambudzo Marechera, which re-evaluates the charges against the author afore mentioned. For the development of this thesis, we decided to focus our attention on the novel “The House of Hunger” and the short stories “Burning in the Rain” and “The Transformation of Harry”, through the analysis of how the choice of the narrative point of view used in the works and how their narratives are constructed help for the construction of the representation of reality. In the Third Chapter, we made use of the postcolonial theories by Homi Bhabha (1998) and Frantz Fanon (2005) to help us analyze how mimesis is built in the short story “Black Skin What Mask”, through an identity crisis suffered by the protagonist-character. The short-story, which has in its title an obvious paraphrase of the title of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (2008), has the construction of reality emerging through the tension between the fictional entity and the environment, which is a configuration of what Erich Auerbach understands mimesis is. / O objetivo desta pesquisa e da dissertação dela resultante é a análise da construção da representação da realidade no livro The House of Hunger (1978), de Dambudzo Marechera. Proeminente escritor do Zimbábue, inscrito na literatura africana de língua inglesa, suas obras ainda não têm traduções para a língua portuguesa. Dentro do seu país, o autor foi alvo de diversas acusações por se negar a escrever segundo a chamada nacional pré e pós-independência, que objetivava produzir obras que obedecessem à estética do realismo do século XIX ou do realismo socialista do século XX. Sua rejeição a essa “tradição” resultou em uma fortuna crítica que, por vezes, vilipendia suas obras por serem antirrealistas e antimiméticas. Esta dissertação tem como foco principal traçar o modo como o conceito de mímesis já apresentava divergências desde a Grécia antiga, com Platão e Aristóteles, e como as contribuições do teórico Erich Auerbach (2013) colaboram para a análise e entendimento do modo da construção da representação da realidade na obra de Dambudzo Marechera, o que reavalia a acusação mencionada anteriormente. Para o desenvolvimento desta dissertação, decidimos focar nossa atenção na novela “The House of Hunger” e os contos “Burning in the Rain” e “The Transformation of Harry”, para analisamos como a escolha do foco narrativo usado nas obras e o modo como suas narrativas são construídas ajudam na construção da representação da realidade. No capítulo terceiro, fizemos uso das teorias pós-coloniais de Homi Bhabha (1998) e de Frantz Fanon (2005) para analisarmos o modo como a mímesis é construída no conto “Black Skin What Mask”, através de uma crise identitária vivenciada pelo personagem-protagonista. O conto, que tem em seu título uma paráfrase evidente da obra Pele negra, máscaras brancas (2008), de Frantz Fanon, tem sua realidade construída em meio à tensão entre a entidade ficcional e o ambiente, o que é a configuração daquilo que Erich Auerbach considera seja a mímesis.

Marechera the Zimbabwean writer, poet and novelist emerged in the late 1970s as a new voice in African literature, but his writing career lasted less than a decade. It was his iconoclastic, dense style that expressed the psychological disintegration prevalent in Africa during this period and challenged the central beliefs of both the nationalist and post-independence eras. Defying the limitations of nationality, race and culture, Marechera’s writing explores universal issues, particularly urban existence in the late twentieth century. Marechera’s life and work were closely linked. His outspoken views and unorthodox lifestyle brought him into frequent conflict with the authorities and contributed to him being perceived as a cult figure. Through his work and personality he became a major inspiration and role model for the younger generation of writers in Zimbabwe and other African countries. The present study is a psychobiographical case study with the primary aim being to explore and describe the personality development of Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) using Alfred Adler’s theory of Individual Psychology. It was through the use of a theory of psychological development that a better understanding of Marechera’s personality, based on his cultural and historical background was achieved and a new interpretation and explanation was reported. The findings of the study can be generalised to the theory of individual psychology through the process of analytical generalization.

Die surrealistische Idee hatte einen starken Einfluss auf die Begründer der Négritude-Bewegung Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor und Léon-Gontran Damas. Diese Beziehung ist vielfach untersucht worden. Weitgehend unberücksichtigt ist bisher die jüngere Generation afrikanischer Schiftsteller geblieben. In dieser Studie wird daher besonders exemplarisch Dambudzo Marechera behandelt, dessen Werk noch nicht unter surrealistischen Aspekten untersucht wurde. Es geht darum, die Formen der literarischen Avantgarde in Afrika südlich der Sahara in ihren surrealistischen Prägungen anhand der Poetik und Lyrik des postkolonialen simbabwischen Schriftstellers Marechera zu analysieren. Es wird das Verhältnis zwischen dem europäischen Surrealismus und den afrikanischen Literaten, insbesondere der späteren Generation untersucht und die Art der Rezeption analysiert. Der Surrealismus ist eine bedeutende Tendenz in der afrikanischen Literatur, die sich unmittelbar auf die postkolonialen Realitäten bezieht und verdient es daher, in weit stärkerem Maße als bisher, beachtet zu werden. / The surrealistic idea has surely had a great influence on the founders of the Négritude-Movement. We are able to find it in the works and poetics of Césaire, Senghor and Damas, and especially in the surrealistically orientated review Tropiques as well as in the critical reception of the African literature. The first alliance of the representatives of the first generation of African poets with Surrealism is due to some of their shared objectives such as the questioning of the colonial system, the critic of colonialism and the recovery and revalorization of the African cultural heritage. The first African poets like Senghor, Césaire and Damas tried to incorporate and apply the surrealistic program to their proper context in order to achieve their own targets, such as: poetically, like Rimbaud declared, to change life and politically, like Marx stated, to change the world. The relationship between Surrealism and African literature presents the main subject of this paper. The dissertation treats particularly authors, who have not yet been examined from a surrealistic point of view. Concerning this thesis, Dambudzo Marechera is regarded above all as an exemplary representative for new literary avant-garde writing from Africa. The area of research for this study is limited most notably on forms of literary Avant-gardes in Africa south of the Sahara and most of all on surrealistic forms. This will be examined by the means of artistic conceptions and philosophy as well as poetic extracts of the postcolonial Zimbabwean writer, which will demonstrate the tendencies of a new trend of writing. The dissertation examines the relationship between European Surrealism and African poetry stemmed from the first and later generations of African writers through Césaire and Marechera. Additionally, it presents a pleadge for pushing the boundaries of research in the field of Surrealisms of African literature and awakening the interest for more research concerning the topic of this paper.

Please read the abstract in the 00front part of this document / Thesis (DLitt (English))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / English / unrestricted

This study investigates how selected Zimbabwean poets use their poetry to re-imagine and rewrite Zimbabwean history to create new identities. It seeks to achieve this by analyzing the poetry of Musaemura Zimunya, Chenjerai Hove, Dambudzo Marechera, Philip Zhuwao, Freedom Nyamubaya and some other women poets from the anthology A Woman’s Plea and John Eppel’s poetry. The study argues that history and identity are unstable concepts whose meanings and usages are influenced by a variety of factors. It further contends that while the significations of history are generally split between how it is regarded in the academic discipline of history and its meanings outside the academic discipline, the controversies surrounding history are about the ways of representing the past. The study builds its central arguments around this existence of multiple ways of ordering the past, and asserts that poetry is also a form of representing history which utilizes its own rhetoric to authorize its versions of the past and construct identities in its own unique ways. These arguments are raised in Chapter One. The analysis of the selected poets’ texts in Chapters Two, Three, Four, Five and Six links them to the arguments raised in Chapter One. It critiques the versions of histories and the nature of identities that are represented differently by different poets. The study in these chapters reveals that poetic narratives are unstable accounts of both the past and identity, but it is this instability that allows poetry to interrogate narrow concepts of what is ‘real’ in history. There are both similar and dissimilar trends that abound in the selected poets’ texts which reveal that even within the poetic mode of representation, there are layers of understanding of the metaphorical symbols which we use to fix the meanings of Zimbabwean history and identities. The study applies different theoretical approaches to the work of each poet in order to show how each has different contribution to make towards the recovery of Zimbabwe’s past and how it speaks to our present. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / English / unrestricted

In der zimbawischen Literatur sind die Themen Nation, Körper, Gewalt, Sprache und Erinnerung aufs engste miteinander verbunden. Durch den Einfluß von Yvonne Vera hat sich in den 90er Jahren das Bild des weiblichen Körpers und insbesondere die Diskussion um koloniale und postkoloniale Gewalt deutlich verändert. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit geht es um die Frage nach Nation. Unterschiedliche Darstellungen von Nehanda und den Kämpferinnen des 2. Chimurenga werden näher beleuchtet. Außerdem geht es um Veras "pastoral novel" in der sie von einer weißen Farmersfrau erzählt. Im zweiten Teil geht es um die Körperkonzepte in der zimbabwischen Literatur. Gewalt in der Familie und vor allem der weibliche Körper als Schlachtfeld steht hier im Mittelpunkt. Die Vergewaltigte und die Prostituierte sind auch weiterhin Symbole für den kolonisierten afrikanischen Kontinent. Vera versucht diese Frauen aus einer anderen Perspektive zu betrachten. Bei ihr geht es um die Erfahrung der Frauen selbst. Der dritte Teil der Arbeit befasst sich schließlich mit der Frage nach der Darstellbarkeit von Gewalt. Wie ist es möglich von Gewalt zu erzählen, ohne die Gewalt zu reproduzieren? Vera beantwortet diese Frage mit der Reflexion über des Erzählen. Bei ihr wirkt Sprache heilend. / In Zimbabwean literature, the themes of nation, body, violence, language, and memory are closely connected. The dissertation analyses, how the treatment of these themes changed significantly during the 1990s. The focus lies on Yvonne Vera's work and its influence on the image of the female body and the debate about colonial as well as postcolonial violence. The first part deals with the question of nation at the example of various narratives about Nehanda and other female freedom fighters in the Second Chimurenga. Further material is drawn from Vera's "pastural novel", in which she tells about a white settler woman. The second part looks at body concepts in Zimbabwean literature. Special attention is paid to domestic violence and the image of the female body as battlefield. The raped woman and the prostitute are still widely used as symbols for the colonized African continent. Vera tries to break with this tradition by looking at such female characters from the perspective of their own experiences. The third part, finally, raises the issue of the representation of violence. How is possible to write about violence without reproducing it? Vera answers this question by reflecting about narration. Language thus works as a healing power in her texts.