Meeting Dambudzo at Oxford

This paper is a narrative of my personal (physical and spiritual) encounter with Dambudzo Marechera during my research visit at Oxford. Marechera was a prolific Zimbabwean writer, poet and playwright whose memory is entrenched in the Zimbabwean imagination because of his artistic prowess and personal-political exploits. He was expelled from the University of Oxford in 1976 and died in Zimbabwe on 18 August 1987. My encounter with Dambudzo is punctuated by my quest to understand what it was like for him as a black Zimbabwean in exile studying at the prestigious institution and having to maneuver his racial and cultural difference. The narrative weaves my personal experiences at Oxford, of British museums and meeting with his biographer into perceptions of Dambudzo Marechera’s archive at Oxford to bring a new understanding—including a psychological and/or clinical review—of Marechera’s memory from a black Zimbabwean perspective and hopefully perpetuate his archive.