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 Demographic features of the population of Zimbabwe include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. Population The population of Zimbabwe ...

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 poe ...

, 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 anim ...

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 * ...

African literature African literature is literature from Africa, either Oral literature, oral ("orature") or written in African languages, African and Afro-Asiatic languages, Afro-Asiatic languages. Examples of Precolonialism, pre-colonial African literature can be ...

Life

Flora Wild was born in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

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 city, capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of , a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metrop ...

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, in 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 Zimbabwean literature is literature produced by authors from Zimbabwe or in the Zimbabwean Diaspora. The tradition of literature starts with a long oral tradition, was influenced heavily by western literature that influenced multiple countries in ...

, which she gained in ''Anglistik'' from

Frankfurt University Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research 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 wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

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 The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

, 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 an academic publisher specialising in African Studies that 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—incl ...

, 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 German literary scholars Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin