Flora Veit-Wild Explained

Flora Veit-Wild (born 11 May 1947)^[1] is a German literary academic, Professor of African Literatures and Cultures at Humboldt University, Berlin. She has published on the Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera, and on the body and madness in African literature.

Life

Flora Wild was born in West Germany in 1947,^[2] and originally studied French and German languages and literature at university.^[3]

She first met Dambudzo Marechera in Harare in 1983 in the office of writer and editor Charles Mungoshi.^{[4] [5]} Veit-Wild and Marachere had a relationship, and remained close friends until his death in 1987.^[6] Veit-Wild lived in Zimbabwe from 1983 to 1993.^[7] 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 in 1991.^[3] She was a founder member of Zimbabwe Women Writers and of the Dambudzo Marechera Trust.^[7]

In 1994 Veit-Wild became professor of African literatures and cultures at the African Studies Department, Humboldt University of Berlin,^[2] where she is now Emeritus Professor of African Literature.^[8]

The academic Agnieszka Piotrowska made a 2014 film about Veit-Wild's relationship with Marechera, Flora and Dambudzo.^[6]

Veit-Wild's memoir They Called You Dambudzo was published in November 2020.^[9]

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, 2006.
• They Called You Dambudzo: A Memoir. Jacana Media Ltd, 2020.

External links

• Prof iR Dr phil Flora Veit-Wild
• Web site: 'I had got involved with Dambudzo Marechera'—Read an excerpt from Flora Veit-Wild’s new memoir, They Called You Dambudzo. The Johannesburg Review of Books. 19 November 2020. 27 February 2021.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Veit-Wild, Flora, 1947– . id.loc.gov . 26 January 2021.
2. Web site: Veit-Wild, Flora, 1947–. Library of Congress Name Authority File. 20 January 2021.
3. Book: Flora Veit-Wild. Frank Schulze-Engler. Gordon Collier. Crabtracks: Progress and Process in Teaching the New Literatures in English : Essays in Honour of Dieter Riemenschneider. 2002. Rodopi. 90-420-1539-X. 21. The Arduous Success Story of a 'Non-Discipline': Teaching African Literature at German Universities.
4. Web site: They Called You Dambudzo. Reading Zimbabwe. 27 February 2021.
5. Web site: Me and Dambudzo: a personal essay. Flora Veit-Wild. Kwachirere. 2 March 2012.
6. Web site: Matthew Reisz. UK-based academic's film well received in Zimbabwe. Times Higher Education Supplement. 9 November 2014. 18 January 2021.
7. Book: Carole Boyce-Davies. Molara Ogundipe-Leslie. Moving Beyond Boundaries (Vol. 2): Black Women's Diasporas. 1995. NYU Press. 978-0-8147-1240-5. 328.
8. News: LitFest discusses Marechera. The Herald. 23 November 2020.
9. Web site: Review: They Called You Dambudzo: A Memoir by Flora Veit-Wild. Africa in Words. Lizzy Attree. 23 February 2021. 27 February 2021.