In the Embraces of Struggle

After Dambudzo Marechera in House of Hunger:

“Something fighting floated down from a pale blue sky. As it floated down to my level, I saw that it was a black man and a white man locked in the embraces of struggle.”

Illustrated for the cover of Cynthia Rumbidzai Marangwanda’s novella, The Toppling, where spirit medium MaMoyo battles the ghost of imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, this piece acknowledges hardship not as defeat but as an enveloping force that shapes identity. The strokes carry tension, yet within them lies resilience.