The skin of time

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The Skin of Time is a book by the Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera . It was published in Harare in 1984 , and the German first edition was published in 1989. The book is considered to be an example of post-colonial literature that has turned away from realistic spelling, mixes a wide variety of styles and likes to go against the expectations of reality.

construction

The book contains a play with the same title as the book, two short stories, a section with poems and an excerpt from Marechera's diary. In his diary, the author describes how he - living on the street - writes his texts in Cecil Square (today African Unity Square) or on the park benches in Harare, equipped with a bag of sour milk or a lump of Sadza , interrupted by excessive alcohol in one Brothel bar or a shebeen .

Society in transition

Returning from exile in England in 1982 , Marechera deals in his book with the transition from colonial Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, which has been independent since 1980 - “full of contempt for and blatant criticism of the new black elite”; for example, when he describes the process of transformation as "radioactive image (s) of African mutants in transition". For his criticism of colonialism and the subsequent socialism in the Zimbabwean way, the author develops drastic formulations and images. For one thing, a noisy and smelly toilet that does not work, in front of which people are forced to queue because of their needs, becomes a symbol for the whole country. Elsewhere, the author deconstructs "the national myth of the socialist construction of the country, which promised prosperity for all, and shows graphically how the noble vision of cheap prostitutes has degenerated."

Criticism of authoritarianism

The author sees the essential characteristic of colonialism in the fact that it has brought about a systematic alienation of the colonized people, as a result of which they have permanently lost their ability to self-determination. This makes it easy for the new, post-colonial elite to maintain authoritarian structures and merely to disguise them with socialist rhetoric. It is the well-fed “Shefs” who look down with their triple chins at the others with the remark “Comrade, you are the backbone of the revolution”, as if it were the life's goal of the comrades to be “as thin and narrow as the backbone of a mosquito be". The truth is different, however: The Shefs' fast, expensive import wagons "leave tattered workers, disturbed peasants and crazy intellectuals in their wake."

Unbourgeois full time writer

Part of Marechera's self-image as a writer is that, despite his material need, he refuses to register with the authorities as unemployed. Although he cannot exchange his labor for money, he does indeed have a job - his work is that of a writer. For himself he takes on the role of "the non-bourgeois full-time writer" - knowing full well that this is completely out of date, as there is no such tradition for such a profession in Zimbabwe.

Freedom of the individual, uncompromising writing

The author sees his way of writing as “complete and merciless writing”, which insists on the independence of the individual and the freedom of the writer or artist and which rejects any kind of compromise with regard to political demands or national traditions. To write “poems that edify the people” or to deliver “poetry in the sense of production” is of no importance to Marechera. What matters to him are "uncompromising artists who refused to be shaped by the hammer and anvil of the philistine."

Quotes

"You say you are hungry and the shef looks down at you over his triple chin and says," Comrade, you are the backbone of the revolution "as if your goal in life were to be as thin and narrow as the backbone of a mosquito . And you try to say: "Shef, I don't want to be the backbone, I want to be the big belly of the fight against neocolonialism, like the one you have under the Castro beard." And before you have even finished talking, he has already The secret service and the police were brought in and you were led to the interrogation barracks at gunpoint. "

“My father's enigmatic death when I was eleven taught me - as nothing else could have done - that everything, including people, is unreal. That I, like Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan, had to weave my own descriptions of reality into the existing fantasy that we call the world. I describe and live my descriptions. According to African doctrine, this is related to witchcraft. "

"Talk about organizing human beings reminds me of prison."

I am against everything
against war and they against
war. Against whatever
inhibits the blind drive of the individual.

expenditure

  • Dambudzo Marechera, Mindblast or The Definitive Buddy, The College Press, Harare 1984
  • Dambudzo Marechera, The Skin of Time. Translated from the English by Wolfgang Gehrmann. With an afterword by Al Imfeld, Graphium press, Wuppertal 1989, ISBN 3-927283-00-2

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dambudzo Marechera, The Skin of Time. Translated from the English by Wolfgang Gehrmann. With an afterword by Al Imfeld, Graphium press, Wuppertal 1989 (original first published 1984), ISBN 3-927283-00-2 , pp. 148, 62, 69 (short story “The story of Hartmesser jr.”)
  2. ↑ Flora Veit-Wild: Carnival and cockroaches. Postcolonialism in African Literature. Inaugural lecture v. February 8, 1995, p. 8
  3. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 119 (poem "The dressing table in the Lancaster house")
  4. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, pp. 173, 51 (diary; play "Die Haut der Zeit: Pieces by Buddy")
  5. ↑ Veit-Wild: Karneval und Kakerlaken, 1995, p. 18. The author refers here in particular to the poem "Oracle of the Oppressed".
  6. ^ Al Imfeld, epilogue. Dambudzo Marechera's return to SHIT, in: Dambudzo Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, pp. 206f.
  7. ↑ Brian Chikwava, Marechera: A Poetic Mind Blast re-encountered in: Poetry International Rotterdam, 30 June 2004
  8. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 44 (play "The Skin of Time: Plays by Buddy")
  9. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 135 (poem "The coin of the moonlight")
  10. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, pp. 171, 153 (diary)
  11. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 152 (diary)
  12. ^ Janko Kozmus, Critical view of the literary work of Dambudzo Marechera
  13. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, pp. 63, 76 (short story "The story of Hartmesser Jr.")
  14. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 73 (short story "The story of Hartmesser Jr.")
  15. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 44 (play "The Skin of Time: Plays by Buddy")
  16. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 149 (diary)
  17. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 161 (diary)
  18. ↑ Marechera, Die Haut der Zeit, 1989, p. 118 (poem The edible bar stool worm )