Anecdote of the Enfant Terrible: The Stigma of Madness in the Works of Dambudzo Marechera

Abstract

Madness has always been a recurring theme in many literary works. Consequently, there was a growing critical interest in studying the representations of madness in literature. Later, the theme of madness gained a new level of interpretation since it has become a pretext for violations committed by authorities. It was used as a tool to restrict many non-conformist writers by censoring or banning their literary productions, in addition to different forms of torture to silence their voices. This paper addresses the question of madness in the legacy of the enfant terrible, the Zimbabwean poet, novelist, and sociopolitical critic Dambudzo Marechera (1952- 1987), in the light of Michel Foucault’s interpretation of madness and power. Since some of Marechera’s writings present the correlation between madness and power, the Foucauldian paradigm presents a valid theoretical explanation for his works. Marechera faced sociopolitical turbulence in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe at his time; he also experienced many problems during his scholarship in England which all eventually contributed to his suffering from psychological and mental crisis. Insights from Foucault can explain how the literary trajectory of Marechera was affected by the authority’s definition of madness and its practice of power. Marechera has been stigmatized as mad, yet he tried to challenge such stigma as reflected in The House of Hunger (1978), Mindblast (1984), and Cemetery of Mind (1992).