Me and Dambudzo

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Notes

1. Marechera had a contract with the South African film-maker, who wanted to film his return to Zimbabwe after eight years in the UK. The project collapsed within the first few days owing to a row between Marechera and Austin. For details see my Dambudzo Marechera: A Source Book on his Life and Work 281–90.

2. Title of one of his poems in Cemetery of Mind 74.

3. ‘Dambudzo’ means ‘causing trouble or pain’ in Shona.

4. He had told me he would use this name when referring to me in his writing.

5. Liedel, Herbert and Helmut Dollhopf, ed. Der alte Kanal damals und heute. Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal. Würzburg: Stürtz, 1981.

6. Her Zambian husband worked for the ANC. He had brought a TV home from Mozambique in which South African agents had planted a bomb. When Tsitsi switched it on, it went off, tearing her to pieces and destroying the flat. See Source Book 375–77. Marechera alludes to it in his poem ‘I used to like tomatoes’ in Cemetery 207.

7. Decree of 1972 prohibiting members of extremist organisations from becoming civil servants or teachers.