I KNOW the old Africa, and how organically natural and deeply relational its psychology is, but I do think Marechera got a bit too close to Bataille with his imagery of solar anus. There are traces of Bataille all over this work. But Marechera is organically African and Bataille is quintessentially modernist. These are not the same thing.
There is much more organic imagery and consciousness – all much closer to nature. In any case, Marechera’s fantasies are not pure fantasy, but moderated by his intellect. This never ceases to be the case. For instance, Black Sunlight is a revolutionary fantasy, but then the fantasy dissolves, and it turns out this was just an intellectual exploration of revolutionary fantasy.
I have thought, of course, long and hard about how I fit in. I think we allow ourselves to be molded and reacted to in youth, but after a certain time it all becomes futile – we work out that we are just what we are.
Fantasy is constructed in post-war Africa, where everybody has been taking actual concrete reality rather too seriously. To lose oneself, and some of one’s seriousness, is not too bad a thing in this context.
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