Flora Veit-Wild (born 11 May 1947) is a German literary academic, Professor of African Literatures and Cultures at
Humboldt University, Berlin. She has published on the
Zimbabwean
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Moza ...
writer
Dambudzo Marechera
Dambudzo Marechera (4 June 1952 – 18 August 1987) was a Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet. His short career produced a book of stories, two novels (one published posthumously), a book of plays, prose, and poetry, ...
, and on the
body
Body may refer to:
In science
* Physical body, an object in physics that represents a large amount, has mass or takes up space
* Body (biology), the physical material of an organism
* Body plan, the physical features shared by a group of anima ...
and
madness
Madness or The Madness may refer to:
Emotion and mental health
* Anger, an intense emotional response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat
* Insanity, a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns
* ...
in
African literature
African literature is literature from Africa, either oral ("orature") or written in African and Afro-Asiatic languages. Examples of pre-colonial African literature can be traced back to at least the fourth century AD. The best-known is the ''Keb ...
.
Life
Flora Wild was born in
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
in 1947,
and originally studied French and German languages and literature at university.
She first met Dambudzo Marechera in
Harare
Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...
in 1983 in the office of writer and editor
Charles Mungoshi
Charles Lovemore Mungoshi (2 December 1947 – 16 February 2019), was a Zimbabwean writer.
Life and career
Mungoshi was born on 2 December 1947 at Manyene, near Chivhu (Zimbabwe). He was educated at St Augustine's, Penhalonga. After leaving ...
. Veit-Wild and Marachere had a relationship, and remained close friends until his death in 1987.
Veit-Wild lived in Zimbabwe from 1983 to 1993.
In 1986 she met Dieter Riemenschneider in Harare, who subsequently supervised a PhD dissertation by Veit-Wild on the social history of
Zimbabwean literature, which she gained in ''Anglistik'' from
Frankfurt University
Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...
in 1991.
She was a founder member of
Zimbabwe Women Writers
Zimbabwe Women Writers (ZWW) is an organization for women writers established in 1990 in Zimbabwe. It was "the first women's organization in Zimbabwe and in Southern Africa to address gender imbalance through writing and publishing".
Established i ...
and of the Dambudzo Marechera Trust.
In 1994 Veit-Wild became professor of African literatures and cultures at the African Studies Department,
Humboldt University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
,
[ where she is now Emeritus Professor of African Literature.
The academic Agnieszka Piotrowska made a 2014 film about Veit-Wild's relationship with Marechera, ''Flora and Dambudzo''.][
Veit-Wild's memoir ''They Called You Dambudzo'' was published in November 2020.]
Works
* (ed.) ''The Black Insider''. Harare: Baobab Books.
* ''Teachers, Preachers, Non-Believers: A Social History of Zimbabwean Literature''. London; New York; Hans Zell Publishers, 1992.
* (ed.) ''Cemetery of Mind: Collected Poems of Dambudzo Marechera'' by Dambudzo Marechera. Harare, Zimbabwe: Baobab Books, 1992.
* ''Dambudzo Marechera: a source book on his life and work''. London; New York: Hans Zell, 1992.
* (ed.) ''Scrapiron blue'' by Dambudzo Marechera. Harare: Baobab Books, 1994.
* (ed. with Anthony Chennell) ''Emerging perspectives on Dambudzo Marechera''. Asmara: Africa World Press, 1998.
* (ed. with Dirk Naguschewski) ''Body, Sexuality, and Gender''. New York: Rodopi, 2005.
* (ed. with Alain Ricard) ''Interfaces between the oral and the written / Interfaces entre l'écrit et l'oral''. New York: Rodopi, 2005.
* ''Writing Madness: Borderlines of the Body in African Literature''. Oxford: James Currey
James Currey is a former academic publisher specialising in African Studies which since 2008 has been an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. It is named after its founder who established the company in 1984. It publishes on a full spectrum of topics†...
, 2006.
* ''They Called You Dambudzo: A Memoir''. Jacana Media Ltd, 2020.
References
External links
Prof iR Dr phil Flora Veit-Wild
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Veit Wild, Flora
1947 births
Living people
German women academics
German Africanists
Literary scholars