Abstract
Mindblast, a new book by Dambudzo Marechera — regarded by some as Zimbabwe's most gifted and challenging young writer — was due to be launched in August at the Second Zimbabwe Book Fair, a major event attended by writers and publishers from all parts of the African continent. In the event, last-minute delays at the printers prevented copies from being ready for the opening of the Fair on 27 August. Two days later, at a party for the presentation of the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, Marechera displayed the book's cover. Copies of the book itself reached the Fair the following day. But Marechera was not there to see them or to sign them, as advertised in the Book Fair programme. He was held in Harare Central Police station from the night of 29 August for four days until the Fair was over.
Marechera's arrest and imprisonment was prompted by an interview with two Dutch radio journalists after the Noma Award party, in the main lobby of Meikles Hotel, Cecil Square, in the centre of Harare. Marechera replied to the journalists' questions at the top of his voice, apparently repeating his customary criticism of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's government: its lack of commitment to socialism, to the rural peasants, and to the black guerillas who fought to end white Rhodesian rule. Both he and the two journalists were led away by police, on orders from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). After being questioned for a couple of hours, the journalists were released, but Marechera remained at the Police Station.
He was detained under emergency powers regulations (the state of emergency was renewed in late July for a further six months — the ninth such renewal since independence), which permits indefinite detention without trial of people believed to pose a threat to state security or public safety. He was not released as soon as the Book Fair closed at midday on 1 September, but on the following day. No charges were confirmed against him.
Marechera's arrest was not reported in the Zimbabwe press until 2 September, the day he was released. Visiting authors were struck by the apparent lack of concern shown by his publishers and the Book Fair organisers.
Mindblast or the Definitive Buddy is Dambudzo Marechera's first book since he returned to Zimbabwe in 1981; born in rural Rhodesia (as it then was) in 1955, he spent most of the 1970s in Europe. The book contains four short plays; a narrative, ‘Grimknife Jr's Story’; a selection of poems, and an Appendix, ‘From the Journal’. He wrote it when he was jobless and homeless, on a typewriter in Cecil Square. It gives his impressions of independent Zimbabwe, and poses the paradoxes for a writer such as himself in such a society. There are references to various forms of harassment and victimisation, and to spells in prison: Marechera had been detained for short periods before as a result of his heavy drinking and quick temper, outspoken views and bohemian life-style.
Marechera's first book, The House of Hunger (Heinemann Educational Books, London) was published in 1978, awarded the Guardian fiction prize in 1979 and republished in 1982 (Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare); it is a set book at the University of Zimbabwe, but banned in South Africa (see p 18). His second book, the novel Black Sunlight (HEB, London) published in 1980, was first banned in Zimbabwe, and then unbanned as a result of an appeal by members of the University of Zimbabwe Literature Department. His third book, Mindblast, is published by College Press, Harare; we print below an extract from the final section, ‘From the Journal’.