THIS, DAMBUDZO, HAS BEEN MY life since you departed. Some of my life.

The boys grew up, bright and strong. They finished their schooling in Berlin, bilingual in English and German. After passing their German Abitur they both went to university in the UK, Max also later in New York. They have German passports but Germany is not their home. Their hearts remain in Africa.

Victor and I eventually went our separate ways and divorced. After our return from Zimbabwe our lives drifted apart. So did the narratives of our lives. I cannot speak for him. I can only speak for myself.

As I am writing, I am approaching my 70th birthday, bringing my lifetime to doubling yours. I mean yours in body and flesh, skin and bones. Your spiritual life has not ended. I have been able to let it fly out of my rucksack into books, into minds, into people.

The university was a great platform to make you known. Whenever I included your work in my teaching, my students jumped at it, at least some did. So different, so raw, so honest they found it. It helped them feel more secure, as Germans, as white Europeans, dealing with Africa. It helped them to feel freer around that terrible conundrum of RACE.

‘I would question anyone calling me an African writer. … If you are a writer for a specific nation or a specific race, then fuck you …’

A liberation for many.

Your words, your works have spread. Now and then I receive an email from ‘Dambudzo Marechera’. How eerie this feels. It is sent from ‘your’ Facebook page. You have not lived to know this age of digital communication. Would you have liked it? Would you have ‘posted’? Now others post for you and about you and ‘like’ you and ‘share’ you and create a page for you so that all your thousands of fans in the whole world can read you and about you.

Hardly a month goes by that I am not contacted by scholars, editors and publishers. Some want to know some detail, like: ‘Was Marechera gay?’ ‘No,’ I answer. ‘What makes you think so?’ ‘The floral jacket he is wearing on some of the photos.’ I smile. That jacket – you nicked it from my wardrobe, like a few other pieces.