The hero of Zakes Mda's beloved Ways of Dying, Toloki, sets down with a family in Middle America and uncovers the story of the runaway slaves who were their ancestors.

Toloki, the professional mourner, has come to live in America. Lured to Athens, Ohio, by an academic at the local university, Toloki makes friends with an angry young man he meets at a Halloween parade and soon falls in love with the young man's sister. Toloki endears himself to a local quilting group and his quilting provides a portal to the past, a story of two escaped slaves seeking freedom in Ohio.

Making their way north from Virginia with nothing but their mother's quilts for a map, the boys hope to find a promised land where blacks can live as free men. Their story alternates with Toloki's, as the two narratives cast a new light on America in the twenty-first century and on an undiscovered legacy of the Underground Railroad.

"'In this exuberant follow-up to Ways of Dying, the celebrated South African novelist and playwright Mda once again centers his story upon the professional mourner Toloki — this time, as he makes his way through a sad and surreal America. Set on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, the novel fixes its outsider gaze on everything from Billionaires for Bush to late-night television, viewing American cultural and political life through a near-anthropological lens. But there is much heart here, too, as Toloki is taken in by an impoverished Southern family; he befriends the son, Obed; falls in love with his melancholy, sitar-playing sister, Orpah; and learns to quilt from their mother, Ruth. Simultaneously, he learns how the quilts link Ruth's ancestry to the slave trade and, in particular, the escape of Nicodemus and Abednego, the beloved sons of a slave called 'The Abyssinian Queen.' Cross-cutting between the slave story and Toloki's experiences, the book offers a rich and original picture of the United States on both a personal and grander historical level and is suffused with the same lyricism, vividness and dark, tragic wit that have earned the author previous recognition here and in his homeland. (Sept.)' Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"One of the most prolific black writers of post-apartheid South Africa, Zakes Mda, has now cast his roaming, wry and satirical eye upon the United States, in particular the rural southeastern Ohio community outside of Athens, Ohio (where, incidentally, Mda teaches at Ohio University). Readers of his first novel, 'Ways of Dying,' will immediately recognize Toloki, the narrator of 'Cion,' a professional... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) mourner who has now become somewhat of an itinerant because of 'the lack of interesting deaths in a South Africa that had become a stable society.' He hopes to create 'more exciting deaths from the tombstones of the world.'

Toloki arrives in Athens on Oct. 30, 2004, three days before the presidential election. He idly joins a Halloween parade and accidentally encounters a costumed character: 'a tall young man, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, with a dusky complexion and long black hair tied in a ponytail. He would have been classified a colored in my country. He is barefoot and is wearing a bloody tattered shirt and knee-length pants that are also bloody and frayed. He has red wheals on his bare arms, face and legs, some of which have caked blood.'

'I'm a fugitive,' he solemnly informs Toloki, 'from the slave breeding farms of Virginia. My name is Nicodemus. I escaped on the Underground Railroad to freedom.'

This is Obed Quigley, and this chance encounter draws Toloki into the universe of Obed's eccentric family and its complicated racial history: Ruth, the mother, who devotes most of her time to preserving food, cooking and quilt making; Mahlon, the taciturn father, who spends hours on his front porch studying the statues of gnomes he has planted in his garden; and Orpah, Obed's older sister, who confines herself to her bedroom, playing the sitar, reading and drawing quilt designs that are never turned into quilts.

Toloki becomes a house guest of the Quigleys for about a year. The residents of the community, Obed announces, are called the WIN people, ''Cause we got three bloods in all of us, homeboy. We got the White blood and the Indian blood and the Negro blood. Get it? WIN people.' Obed claims Nicodemus, the character whose identity he assumes on Halloween, as one of his ancestors; and one important dimension of the story Toloki tells in 'Cion' revolves around his attempt to unravel and connect the various strands of the Quigley family history.

Mda is clearly familiar with the body of contemporary writing that some critics have dubbed 'neo-slave narratives,' a significant genre of fiction — by writers as diverse as Ishmael Reed, David Bradley, Sherley Anne Williams, Toni Morrison and, most recently, Edward P. Jones — that dramatically re-enacts the vicissitudes of slavery in the United States, including incidents of slave-breeding and sexual abuse, the disruption of families and harrowing escapes. And Mda acknowledges his debt to the assertion in Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard's book 'Hidden in Plain View' that the designs of traditional African-American quilts contained secret codes that guided fugitive slaves on the route of the Underground Railroad. Quilt-making occupies a central place in 'Cion': The art of quilting is the basis of the strained relationship between the mother, Ruth, and her daughter, Orpah; Toloki begins to take quilting lessons at the local community center, further burrowing into community history and memory. And he does not hesitate to weigh in on Tobin and Dobard's argument, offering his own nuanced perspective.

In fact, Toloki is somewhat of a meddler and a busybody, albeit a genial and engaging one. Early in his sojourn, he recognizes that 'Sooner or later I'll be grappling with the problem of shaping my life in a meaningful way in this strange culture.' Open and curious about everything he sees and hears, Toloki produces a narrative that is part sociological observation and part anthropological investigation, replete with topical references to George Bush, the Iraq War and American media practices. But Toloki's interventions in the lives of the Quigleys inevitably create trouble. He frequently upbraids Obed, who spends most of his time and energy scheming ways of profiting from his mixed racial heritage; he confronts Ruth about her treatment of Orpah, unwittingly exacerbating the tension that already exists between them; and he harbors suspicions about the possibility of an incestuous relationship between Mahlon and Orpah.

Like its affable narrator, 'Cion' leisurely ambles from one episode to the next. As the various strands of the novel begin to coalesce, however, it becomes clearer that, in his capacity as a professional healer, Toloki has performed an important function for the Quigley family and, by extension, the larger society that continues to neglect the tangled web of its history. The sensibility through which Toloki refracts this story embodies the spirit of ubuntu — the term so frequently invoked by Archbishop Tutu and others during South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation hearings to denote 'the universal bond of sharing that connected all humanity.' In the end, 'Cion' strongly suggests that ubuntu may well offer a way for America to confront the ghosts of its racial past.

James A. Miller is a professor of English and American studies at George Washington University."

Reviewed by James A. Miller, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"An essential companion piece to such 20th century masterpieces as Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Toni Morrison's Beloved and Song of Solomon. More to the point, this is a great African writer's great American novel. A stunning book." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[Mda's] commentary on the political views and culture of African Americans is full of insight and humor." Library Journal

"Mda's elegant patchwork of clever storytelling, wry characterization and good-natured humor is more than enough." Cleveland Plain Dealer

The hero of Mdas Ways of Dying, Toloki, settles down with a family in middle America and uncovers the story of the runaway slaves who had been their ancestors. Their stories alternate with Tolokis, and the two narratives cast new light on an undiscovered legacy of the Underground Railroad.

Zakes Mda is a professor of creative writing at Ohio University. He lives in Athens, Ohio.