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Ecce Homo

How One Becomes What One is
Series: Penguin Archive
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90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Ecce Homo No, I don't hate being black. I'm just tired of saying it's beautiful. No, I don't hate myself. I'm just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw. A novella with the force of... Read More
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90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books

Ecce Homo

No, I don't hate being black. I'm just tired of saying it's beautiful. No, I don't hate myself. I'm just tired of people bruising their knuckles on my jaw.

A novella with the force of a screaming trumpet flare, Dambudzo Marechera's seminal literary debut explores a body and spirit exiled from the land and the self. An inimitable and internationally admired writer, his profound ambivalence and wry, existential sensibility were forged in this iconic book.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241752227

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 April 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Contributors:

  • Introduction by Michael Tanner
  • Translated by R. J. Hollingdale

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 8.0mm

Width: 110.0mm

Height: 180.0mm

Weight: 90g

Pages: 144

About the Author

Dambudzo Marechera was born in 1952 in Vengere, the township of Rusape, in the east of what was then Rhodesia. He was the third of nine children in a family which became destitute once his father was killed in a road accident in 1966. he gained a scholarship to study at New College, Oxford, where he was sent down in 1976 to live out his exile in Britain in a succession of squats for another six years. He hammered out the first draft of The House of Hunger on his portable typewriter in a matter of weeks. It won the Guardian First Novel Prize and was translated into six languages. Marechera died in 1987 after being diagnosed with AIDS.

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