It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
The House of Hunger

The House of Hunger

Summary

'One of African literature's most fascinating and unorthodox figures' Brian Chikwava

'When all else fails, don't take it in silence: scream like hell, scream like Jericho was tumbling down, serenaded by a brace of trombones, scream'

Dambudzo Marechera burst onto the literary scene in 1978 with this vivid roar of a book exploring township life in pre-independence Zimbabwe. Rejecting what he saw as the narrow stereotypes of African literature, Marechera's stories portrayed a world flashing with violence and anarchic humour, as his narrator expresses his desperate alienation - from his family, from his student friends, from Zimbabwe itself.

'A writer who considered fiction a "form of combat", complex, challenging - and uniquely potent' Guardian

'Like overhearing a scream' Doris Lessing

'A terrible beauty is born out of the urgency of his vision' Angela Carter

Reviews

  • A profound, even if exaggeratedly self-aware writer, an instinctive nomad and bohemian in temperament, Marechera was a writer in constant quest for his real self
    Wole Soyinka

About the author

Dambudzo Marechera

Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more