Dambudzo Marechera wrote The House of Hunger , in 1978, inspiring a generation of Zimbabweans. (Photograph by Ernst Schade via Humboldt University, courtesy of The Conversation) My first encounter with Dambudzo Marechera is at assembly at an out-of-the-way rural boarding school. I was twelve. At this point I don’t know his story or reputations. His gender is fluid. For a while he stayed a woman in my imagination. He is not a man. Androgynous. – Tinashe Mushakavanhu My first encounter with Dambudzo Marechera is in a country to the north of South Africa. I am 30. Marechera has just died. At this point, everything I hear from comrades about his books and his personality makes me conclude I am never going to read him.