‘I really tried to put terrorism into a historical perspective, neither applauding their acts nor condemning them. The photographer does not take sides; he just takes the press photographs.’


In an unspecified setting the tream-of-consciousness narrative of this dark and visceral cult novel traces the fortunes of a group of anarchists in revolt against a military-fascist-capitalist opposition. In evocative flashes, sex, violence, war, myths and ideologies explode in a labyrinthine plot, viewed through the camera lens of a photojournalist known only as Christian.
In Dambudzo Marechera’s second experimental novel, he parodies African nationalist and racial identifications to show that notions of an ‘essential African identity’ were often invoked across Africa to authorise totalitarian regimes. Such irreverent, avant-garde literature was criticised upon publication in Zimbabwe in 1980, and Black Sunlight was banned on charges of ‘Euromodernism’ and challenging the concept of nation-building in the newly independent country.

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