Black Sunlight

In this dark and deeply radical novel, Dambudzo Marechera offers an account of a photojournalist's entanglement with a terrorist organisation.

In this dark and deeply radical novel, Dambudzo Marechera offers a visceral account of a photojournalist's entanglement with a terrorist organisation.

In an unnamed totalitarian state, the members of Black Sunlight – a group of violent anarchists – are the only ones fighting for change and justice. As their actions push the country further towards chaos, journalist Christian records it all through the lens of his camera.

Christian's life so far has been one of immense struggle and alienation. So when he becomes tangled in the Black Sunlight uprising, he is determined to remain a bystander and nothing more; to capture their actions without praise or condemnation.

In evocative flashes of sex, violence, war, and myth, Christian's story explodes in a labyrinthine plot, told through a chaotic stream-of-consciousness that mirrors the nation's crumbling climate. Black Sunlight is a piercing insight into the darkness of the human psyche and a raw examination of a nation in battle against itself – where everything political turns deeply personal.

'Complex, challenging – and uniquely potent.' Guardian
'A writer in constant quest for his real self.' Wole Soyinka.