House of hunger

Dambudzo Marechera burst onto the English literary scene with a bang in 1978 with this vivid roar of a book exploring township life in pre-independence Zimbabwe. Irreverent and uncompromising, Dambudzo Marechera rejected what he saw as the narrow stereotypes of African literature, and was a fearless critic of his country. The narrator expresses his desperate alienation – from his family, from his student friends, from township life and from Zimbabwe itself. This novella, and the other short stories here, portray an explosive world that flashes with both violence and humour.