Dambudzo Marechera, the English Faculty, and The Black Insider
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ChiVRN8Nn4Y
In Episode 3 of the podcast, Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu and Dr Niall Munro are on top of the University of Oxford's St Cross Building, home to the English Faculty to discuss Marechera's posthumously-published book The Black Insider.
The book locates its protagonist in a Faculty of Arts where numerous Faculty members and students hold literary and philosophical conversations, all whilst a war is taking place outside the building. Tinashe and Niall consider Marechera's relationship to English at Oxford and his reading, how far he might be considered an auto-fiction writer, and his literary influences. Tinashe also talks about the genre of The Black Insider, and how far the book can be considered a manifesto about writing and the author's own view of a world in conflict with itself. Does The Black Insider provide an affirmative picture of community and is it a prophetic text?
