Scrapiron Blues (African Writers Library)

This is a stunning collection of Marechera's last writings, evoking city life with its many disparate facets - from the glittering fashion shops in First Street Mall to the tramps in the alleys, and in Marechera's only known piece in Shona, "The Servants' Ball." What at first sight seems peaceful and harmless, is suddenly disrupted by flashes of madness for, in Marechera's universe, everyday life is always haunted by the nightmares of Zimbabwe's past. In the "Concentration Camp," Marechera gives a poetic, deeply felt voice to the dread experienced by former inhabitants of the "keeps," the restricted villages of Zimbabwe's War of Liberation. Often he takes a child's view to measure the horrors of adult society. Gentleness paired with sarcasm marks his hardly known children's stories.