BOOK REVIEWS 101African attitude towards death and dying, the N'ganga, the guardian of theShona way of life' etc.On the section on mass media there are 14 entries. Provincialnewspapers such as Gweru Times, the Cheziya Gokwe Post, Kwayedza, tolist a few, were excluded.Notwithstanding these limitations, the publication is an invaluablesource of information for interested readers, lecturers, researchers andpersons working in the area of development.University of Zimbabwe D. PAKKIRIDambudzo Marechera: A Source Book on his Life and Work By FloraVeit-Wild. Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, London, Melbourne,Munich, New York, Hans Zell Publishers, 1992, xvi, 419pp., ISBN 9-908307-29-2, Z$36.This unusual book is a stunning achievement Š a labour of love by theGerman-born Flora Veit-Wild. She sets out to trace the influences whichshaped the outlook of one of Zimbabwe's most controversial writers, thelate Dambudzo Marechera. For the first time those who have readMarechera's House of Hunger (1978), which won the Guardian FictionPrize in 1978, and his novels, Black Sunlight (1980) and The Black Insider(1990), have an opportunity to understand the life of the author, his viewson art, history, culture, sex, violence and what he sees as the endemicbrutalities of the twentieth century civilization. The book reveals at lengthMarechera's relentless engagement with world literatures, those he enjoyedmost and the writers who influenced him.In terms of structure, the book is flexibly constructed and dependanton particular phases of Marechera's life, the places he visited and thepeople he interacted with. Most gripping are the revelations about hischildhood in the ghettoes of colonial Rusape, his experiences at secondaryschool and his reactions to English society and to the somewhat staidacademic traditions of Oxford University, which he attended in Britainafter his expulsion from the then University of Rhodesia in 1973. Particularlyharrowing is the section chronicling Marechera's life as a tramp in Londonwith no fixed address or recognized identity and social role. Fascinatingto observe is the way the destitute writer relied on the generallysympathetic but increasingly frustrated Heinemann publisher, JamesCurrey. The book also says much on Marechera's unorthodox rise tointernational fame, which reaches its peak during his visit to the culturalfestival held in Berlin in 1979. Marechera relished the limelight of theoccasion, gave a dramatic performance and projected himself as a rebelwriter waging a guerrilla war in the world of literature. Flora Veit-Wild'sbook also chronicles Marechera's subsequent return to an independentZimbabwe and the isolation and disappointment he encountered.Significantly, what Marechera says about himself, Zimbabwe and Africa,102 BOOK REVIEWSbitter though it is, is very helpful to anyone striving to understand fully hislater works: Mindblast (1984), The Black Insider (1990) and Cemetery of theMind (1992).What the literary researcher will find helpful are the numerousinterviews and various recollections by Marechera himself. Arguably theseconstitute the core of the book and are supplemented by testimonialstatements culled from confidential school records and university files onMarechera which Flora Veit-Wild unearthed in Zimbabwe, Britain andEurope. Substantial parts of the book are also based on confidentialreaders' reports on Marechera's work received by Heinemann Publishersover the years. Of particular interest to scholars of African literature is thelight the book sheds on the process of publication and the degree towhich African literature in European languages is only a screened versionof the original. Also implicitly raised in the book are questions relating tothe problematic role of publishers in promoting specific trends of writingand the impact this has on the overall picture of African literature.Standing out in the source book is the personality of the writer.Marechera emerges as a challenging paradoxical figure, captivating tofriends and foes alike Š a person with an extraordinary capacity to elicitthe goodwill and to incur the displeasure of Blacks and Whites both inZimbabwe and Britain. He comes across as the proverbial scourge rippingapart those values and conventions cherished across generations.Marechera's dismissive attitude towards the African past and his relentlessopposition to colonialism and to any forms of oppression are part of hisiconoclastic vision. The same vision also defines his attitude to languages.Here is what Marechera said when, in a characteristically unorthodoxmanner, he interviewed himself:Shona was part of the ghetto daemon I was trying to escape. Shona had beenplaced within the context of a degraded, mind-wrenching experience from whichapparently the only escape was into the English language and education. TheEnglish language was automatically connected with the plush and seeming splen-dour of the White side of town. As far as expressing the creative turmoil within myhead was concerned, I took to the English language as a duck takes to water. I wastherefore a keen accomplice and student in my own mental colonisation. At thesame time of course there was the unease, the shock of being suddenly struck bystuttering, of being deserted by the very medium 1 was to use in all my art. Thisperhaps is the undergrowth of my experimental use of English, standing it on itshead, brutalising it into a more malleable shape for my own purposes. For a blackwriter the language is very racist; you have to have harrowing fights and hair-raising panga duels with the language before you can make it what you want it todo. It is so for the feminists. English is very male ... (pp. 3-4).Marechera's efforts to subvert and recast the English language for hisown creative purposes are in fact part of his wider effort to question in aradical way what Africa and the rest of the world have often taken forgranted. He is as scathing towards Western culture and society as he istowards Negritude, African personality and African nationalism. His writingsBOOK REVIEWS 103do not easily fall in line with the thrust of protest African literature. His isan unsettling voice closer perhaps to A. Kwei Armah's in The BeautyfulOnes Are Not Yet Born (1968) and Yambo Ouologuem's Bound to Violence(1968). Flora Veit-Wild's book captures in detail the complex and oftenconflicting facets of Marechera's life and art. The work of Marechera andhis life are shown as closely related and near the anarchist tradition. Thebook is accessible to most members of the public and a more than welcomesource of information for literary scholars.Literary works referred to In the textARMAH A. K., The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Bom (London, Heinemann,1963).MARECHERA D., House of Hunger (London, Heinemann, 1978).Š, The Black Insider (Harare, Baobab Books, 1990).Š, Black Sunlight (London, Heinemann, 1980).Š, Mindblast (Harare, College Press, 1984).Š .Cemetery of The Mind (Harare, College Press, 1984).OUOLOGUEM Y., Bound to Violence (Oxford, Heinemann Int., 1968).WILD F., Dambudzo Marechera: A Source Book on his Life and Work (Harare,University of Zimbabwe Publications, 1992).University of Zimbabwe R. ZHUWARARAAIDS: Action Now: Information, Prevention and Support in ZimbabweBy H. Jackson. Harare, Aids Counselling Trust and School of Social Work,2nd edn., 1992, xvii, 334 pp., ISBN 0-7974-1146-1, Z$25.The second edition of AIDS: Action Now is so substantially revised that itscarcely resembles the first edition. The new edition bears the stamp ofthe author's own longstanding involvement in AIDS research, preventionand treatment programmes. The chapters are well chosen, covering mostmajor areas of AIDS activity. The book is comprehensive, insightful andreadable. It skilfully interweaves scientific publications, workshopproceedings, conference papers, donor-agency reports, newspaper articles,letters and interviews with AIDS workers. Its presentation is appealing asit includes numerous maps, graphs, charts, cartoons, samples ofeducational materials and photographs. Well-chosen quotations heightenthe reader's interest. Boxes are skilfully used to complement the maintext, particularly in highlighting the key points at the end of the chapter.Each chapter also contains reference lists.The book begins with a chapter on the global, regional and nationalepidemiology of HIV and AIDS. The global review is excellent, as is the