He's interesting indeed. The war in Rhodesia, and the subsequent regime change was extremely traumatic to all involved, but I do think that generally the blacks suffered worse than the whites from the war. Marechera had a genius level IQ but had a schizophrenic break in his mid-teens as he was doing his all-important 'O' level exams. These would either get him out of destitution or leave him there. Somehow he recovered from this psychotic break and went on to become a gifted writer, although even from his own perspective his gift came about through a detachment from reality, because he found reality had been too horrifying in his childhood. Nevertheless, he also developed to become an acute social and political observer, seeing that not all was right with the new Zimbabwe either.
As he and I had experienced similar historical traumas, I was able to learn a great deal from his superior thinking and writing, as to how to get back my sense of history and recapture my soul. I do think he wrote very bravely and with much naked honesty, rather than grinding a political axe too much. In the end he died destitute, after living eighteen months on the Harare streets. He suffered from HIV-related pneumonia. I do believe he lived his life as heroically as his circumstances would allow, even if sometimes he was not quite relating to reality.
As he and I had experienced similar historical traumas, I was able to learn a great deal from his superior thinking and writing, as to how to get back my sense of history and recapture my soul. I do think he wrote very bravely and with much naked honesty, rather than grinding a political axe too much. In the end he died destitute, after living eighteen months on the Harare streets. He suffered from HIV-related pneumonia. I do believe he lived his life as heroically as his circumstances would allow, even if sometimes he was not quite relating to reality.
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