Sherds Podcast

The House of Hunger was originally published in by Heinemann in 1978. The book is a collection of harrowing, autobiographical short stories in which Marechera’s experiences both in his native Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and as a university student at Oxford, are channeled into a psychedelic cascade of blistering imagery and broken stream-of-consciousness narratives. In his own words, writing in English - his second language - rather than the Shona he grew up speaking, meant confronting the inherent racism of the language, “discarding grammar, throwing syntax out, subverting images within […] developing torture chambers of irony and sarcasm, gas ovens of limitless black resonance”. 



Over the course of the episode, we discuss the violence and vibrancy of Marechera’s prose, consider his attitude to the newly independent Zimbabwe, and his torturous love affair with the English language. 


Bibliography: 


'African Doppelganger: Hybridity and Identity in the Work of Dambudzo Marechera' by David Buuck in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 28, No. 2, Autobiography and African Literature (Summer, 1997), pp. 118-131

'On Dambudzo Marechera: The Life and Times of an African Writer' by Helon Habila in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 82, No. 1, A Special Report: Aids in Africa (Winter 2006), pp. 251-260

‘Reveling in Genre: An Interview with China Miéville’ in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3, The British SF Boom (Nov., 2003), pp. 355-373

Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo was originally published in Spanish in 1955. The book is published by Serpent’s Tail, the translation is by Margaret Sayers Peden and the readings in this episode are by Jakub Blank.

The book concerns the journey of a young man to his mother’s native village of Comala, where he will search for his father, the elusive figure, Pedro Páramo. What he finds upon his arrival is a ghost town, the spectral image of a once vital community whose voices rise up to assail him with lamentations from beyond the grave. Somewhere within this chorus of the dead unfolds the tale of the landowner, Don Pedro, whose iron grip upon the town may well have been the source of its desolation.

Over the course of the episode, we discuss Rulfo’s intriguing use of structure, Mexican rituals surrounding death, and the brutality of its central character.

Bibliography:

‘The Fractal Structure of Pedro Páramo: Comala, When Will You Rest?’ by Elizabeth Sánchez in Hispania, Vol. 86, No. 2 (May, 2003)

‘Landscape and Loss in Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo’ by M. Ian Adams in Chasqui, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Nov., 1979)

‘Introduction to Juan Rulfo’s Naming Strategies in Pedro Páramo’ by Margaret V. Ekstrom in Literary Onomastics Studies (1979)

In this episode, I spoke to the writer, Rebecca Lloyd, about her novel, The Child Cephalina (2019), which is published by Tartarus Press:

Rebecca Lloyd’s superb Gothic novel explores friendship, obsession and the uncanny in teeming mid-Victorian London. At its heart is a tale of human relationships threatened by an unknowable force.’

From the very first, the child Cephalina brought conflict into the otherwise peaceful, if eccentric, household at number 12 Judd Street. Robert’s fascination with her was instant, but he could never decide if this eleven-year-old was innocent and lonely, or clever and manipulative. It worried him. His encounters with her were both enchanting and unnerving. All the while his devotion to her was growing, until in the end, nothing could save him from a fate he would never have believed could be his . . .

Find out more about Rebecca Lloyd’s work at her website: beccalloyd.org

Over the course of the episode we discuss spiritualism in the nineteenth century, Henry Mayhew, who was the inspiration for the novel’s narrator, and consider some of the taboo relationships depicted in the novel.

Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy was originally published in Italian in 1989.  The translation is by Tim Parks, and the book is published by And Other Stories.   The novel concerns the early years in the life of a young student at an exclusive boarding school in the Swiss mountains.  Throughout the book, her strained relationship with her environment, her peers, and her inner self are subject to cold examination. In crystalline, almost clinical, prose, all is dissected and laid bare - the innocent exterior of school life is peeled away, and the rotting core exposed.

I’m joined by Stefan Głowacki to discuss Cinnamon Shops, a collection of short stories by Bruno Schulz, which was originally published in Polish in 1934. In this episode, we discuss this classic of Polish literature in its most recent translation by Madeline G. Levine, which is published by Northwestern University Press. The readings are by Marceli Sommer.

In these magnificent autobiographical stories, Schulz writes about the sleepy town of Drohobych where grew up, transforming it into a mythical landscape in which every object blushes under the intensity of his gaze.

Over the course of the episode, we discuss the importance of Schulz’s critical text, Mityzacja rzeczywistości (The Mythologising of Reality), which some have called his manifesto. We also debate his similarity to Franz Kafka, and examine the figure of the father in Schulz’s aesthetic project.

The artwork for this episode is ‘Night Walk’ by Alicja Nikodem, which she based on Shculz’s stories. More of her work can be found here: http://www.alicjanikodem.com/

Bibliography:

Regions of the Great Heresy: Bruno Schulz, a Biographical Portrait by Jerzy Ficowski (W. W. Norton, 2003), trans. Theodosia S. Robertson

Opowiadania. Wybór esejów i listów (Wydawnictwo ossolineum, 1989) ed. Jerzy Jarzębski