D. 马瑞彻拉

丹布佐·马雷切拉（Dambudzo Marechera，1952年6月4日—1987年8月18日）是津巴布韦小说家、短篇小说作家、剧作家和诗人。

他曾在罗得西亚大学就读，结果在大学骚乱期间被开除，之后他又进入牛津大学新学院就读，马雷切拉给教授们的印象是他是一位非常聪明但却不愿意遵守纪律的学生，他不愿意按照学院的要求去学习，而是去阅读任何他感兴趣的书。他还会毫不犹豫地与别人发生肢体冲突。学校的心理医生认定他患精神分裂症。马雷切拉还威胁要杀死某些人，并试图纵火焚烧大学。大学最终将其开除。

1977年，他因持有大麻而被判入狱，最终被英国方面驱逐出境。

1982年，马雷切拉返回津巴布韦并协助拍摄电影。然而他却与导演闹翻，他因此不得不离开剧组。1987年，他因患有与艾滋病有关的肺部疾病而去世，享年35岁。

Dambudzo Marechera (4 June 1952 – 18 August 1987) was a Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright, and poet. His short career produced a book of stories, two novels (one published posthumously), a book of plays, prose, and poetry, and a collection of poetry (also posthumous). His first book, a fiction collection entitled The House of Hunger (1978), won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979. Marechera was best known for his abrasive, heavily detailed, and self-aware writing, which was considered a new frontier in African literature, and his unorthodox behaviour at the universities from which he was expelled despite excelling in his studies.

Early life and education

Marechera was born on 4 June 1952 in Vengere Township, Rusape, Southern Rhodesia, to Isaac Marechera, a mortuary attendant, and Masvotwa Venenzia Marechera, a maid. He was the child of Shona parents from the eastern-central part of Rhodesia.

He grew up amid racial discrimination, poverty, and violence. He attended St. Augustine's Mission, Penhalonga, where he clashed with his teachers over the colonial teaching syllabus, and he went on to the University of Rhodesia (now University of Zimbabwe), from which he was expelled during student unrest, and New College, Oxford, where his unsociable behaviour and academic dereliction led to another expulsion.

Trouble and success in England

At the University of Oxford, Marechera struck his professors as a very intelligent but rather anarchic student who had no particular interest in adhering to course syllabi, choosing rather to read whatever struck his fancy. He also had a reputation for being a quarrelsome young man who did not hesitate to fight his antagonists physically, especially in the pubs around Oxford. He began to display erratic behaviour, which the school psychologist diagnosed as schizophrenia. Marechera threatened to murder certain people and attempted to set the university on fire. He was also famous — or notorious — for having no respect for authority derived from notions of racial or class superiority. For trying to set the college on fire, Marechera was given two options: either to submit to a psychiatric examination or be sent down; he chose the latter, charging that they were mentally raping him.

At this point, Marechera's life became troubled, even landing him in Cardiff Prison in 1977 for possession of marijuana, and a decision regarding his deportation. He joined the rootless communities around Oxford and other places, sleeping in friends' sitting-rooms and writing various fictional and poetic pieces on park benches and being regularly mugged by thugs and harassed by the police for vagrancy. During this period, he also lived for many months in the squatting community at Tolmers Square in central London.

Publication

Marechera's first book and magnum opus, The House of Hunger (1978) – a collection of one novella and nine satellite short stories – came immediately after his largely disappointing time at New College, Oxford. The House of Hunger was taken on by James Currey at Heinemann and published in their African Writers Series. The book's long title story describes the narrator's troubled childhood and youth in colonial Rhodesia.

The House of Hunger was awarded the 1979 Guardian Fiction Prize. Marechera was the first and the only African to have won the award in its 33 years, and he became a celebrity in the literary circles of England. However, he constantly caused outrage. At the buffet dinner for the award of the Guardian Fiction Prize, in a tantrum Marechera began to launch plates at a chandelier. Nevertheless, Leeds University and the University of Sheffield offered him positions as a writer-in-residence.