Synopses & Reviews
Zakes Mda is the most acclaimed South African writer of the independence era. His eight novels tell stories that venture far beyond the conventional narratives of a peoples struggle against apartheid. In this memoir, he tells the story of a life that intersects with the political life of his country but that at its heart is the classic adventure story of an artist, lover, father, teacher, and bon vivant.
Zanemvula Mda was born in 1948 into a family of lawyers and grew up in Sowetos ambitious educated black class. At age fifteen he crossed the Telle River from South Africa into Basutoland (Lesotho), exiled like his father, a “founding spirit” of the Pan Africanist Congress. Exile was hard, but it was just another chapter in Mdas coming-of-age. He served as an altar boy (and was preyed on by priests), flirted with shebeen girls, feared the racist Boers, read comic books alongside the literature of the PAC, fell for the music of Dvorák and Coltrane, wrote his first stories—and felt the void at the heart of things that makes him an outsider wherever he goes. The Soweto uprisings called him to politics; playwriting brought him back to South Africa, where he became writer in residence at the famed Market Theatre; three marriages led him hither and yon; acclaim brought him to America, where he began writing the novels that are so thick with the life of his country. In all this, Mda struggled to remain his own man, and with Sometimes There Is a Void he shows that independence opened the way for the stories of individual South Africans in all their variety.
Review
“Mdas electric honesty is a live current through his remarkably gorgeous, urgent, poetic, matter-of-fact memoir. But dont get lulled into thinking this is the book of one bravely truthful mans journey into self-expression. Mda has shaken off calcification, identity, ego and walked us all into sovereignty and selfhood. Read this, and be prepared to examine your own soul as never before. Speaking for myself, I know its been a long time since I have been so undone and remade by another persons words.” —Alexandra Fuller, author of Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
Review
“Mdas greatest gift is his Dickensian social range, his ability to generate characters from diverse backgrounds, colluding and colliding across the barriers erected to divide them. Mdas gregarious and transfixing memoir, Sometimes There Is a Void, chronicles the upheavals that have sharpened his skills as a wide-ranging social observer . . . Mdas autobiographical voice strikes a fine balance between outward engagement and inner exploration . . . To his credit, in a deeply unsettled life, he has nurtured this capacity to find within the creative act itself new, reviving forms of homecoming.” —Rob Nixon, The New York Times Book Review
“A moving, funny, and deeply bawdy book that meanderingly describes the South African writers coming of age during a period when Nelson Mandela was more well-known for being a lady-killer than a politician, and the Boers of South Africa were boogeymen to young boys all over southern Africa. Into the alphabet soup of political allegiances jumps the young Mda, son of a lawyer—and a lover, not a fighter . . . The alternating warmth and horror of Mdas recollections make “Sometimes There Is a Void a strangely gripping book . . . Here is a man looking back on his life and country with joy and sorrow, and all their excessive gestures. He chafes against easy narratives. They were—he was—alive with ideas, growing up at the dawn of South Africas independence. But they were also alive with so much else: sex and food and booze, family life and music. Lift the lid off this big overstuffed book and all of it - or what feels like all of it - comes tumbling out.” —John Freeman, The Boston Globe
“Born into a prominent South African activist family, Mda fled to Lesotho at the age of fifteen to join his father, a radical lawyer living in exile. He went on to become one of the most celebrated playwrights and novelists of the post-apartheid era.” —The New Yorker
“Mdas electric honesty is a live current through his remarkably gorgeous, urgent, poetic, matter-of-fact memoir. But dont get lulled into thinking this is the book of one bravely truthful mans journey into self-expression. Mda has shaken off calcification, identity, ego and walked us all into sovereignty and selfhood. Read this, and be prepared to examine your own soul as never before. Speaking for myself, I know its been a long time since I have been so undone and remade by another persons words.” —Alexandra Fuller, author of Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
Review
"A gregarious and transfixing memoir... Chronicles the upheavals that have sharpened Mdas skills as a wide-ranging social observer." — Rob Nixon, The New York Times Book Review"Fascinating... During my five-year stint as Africa bureau chief for The Christian Science Monitor, I struggled in vain to find a memoir like this one." —Scott Baldauf, The Christian Science Monitor"It is easy to become immersed in this memoir… Mdas deeper struggles parallel those of all South Africans seeking identity and freedom." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Remarkably gorgeous, urgent, poetic... Its been a long time since I have been so undone and remade by another persons words." —Alexandra Fuller, author of Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight
Review
"An engaging and interesting read."
Review
"Vivid inventiveness and acerbic iconoclasm . . . Tender humor and brutal violence vie with each other in Zakes Mdas pages, as do vibrant life and sudden death. The struggle between them creates an energetic and refreshing literature for a country still coming to terms with both the new and the old."
Review
"Mda has based his story on the research on the kingdom done by many archaeologists and historians, whom he acknowledges.From scant solid information he has spun a fluid and engaging tale. His two main characters are sculptors, Chatambudza (called Chata mostly) and Rendani, the apprentice and son respectively of the royal sculptor, and Mda lets their lives unfold with effortless simplicity and rich detail."
Review
“A fascinating and beautiful narrative arena . . . The Sculptors of Mapungubwe is a void-filling project, not least because it brings to life a time and place ignored by history.”
Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year "Moving, funny... Here is a man looking back on his life and country with joy and sorrow."
—John Freeman, The Boston Globe
The most acclaimed South African writer of his generation, Zakes Mda eight novels venture far beyond the conventional narratives of a peoples struggle against apartheid. In this memoir, he tells of a life that intersects with the politics of his country—a story that is, at its heart, the classic adventure of an artist, lover, and bon vivant. Living in exile with his father in Basutoland (now Lesotho) during the first pangs of his countrys independence, a series of brutal and poignant initiations ushered him toward the life of a writer—and that of a perpetual outsider. Through the indignity of Boer racism, the turmoil of the Soweto uprisings, not to mention three marriages and his eventual immigration to America, Mda struggled to remain his own man. With Sometimes There Is a Void, he shows that independence opened the way for the stories of individual South Africans in all their variety.
Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year "Moving, funny... Here is a man looking back on his life and country with joy and sorrow."
—John Freeman, The Boston Globe
The most acclaimed South African writer of his generation, Zakes Mda eight novels venture far beyond the conventional narratives of a peoples struggle against apartheid. In this memoir, he tells of a life that intersects with the politics of his country—a story that is, at its heart, the classic adventure of an artist, lover, and bon vivant. Living in exile with his father in Basutoland (now Lesotho) during the first pangs of his countrys independence, a series of brutal and poignant initiations ushered him toward the life of a writer—and that of a perpetual outsider. Through the indignity of Boer racism, the turmoil of the Soweto uprisings, not to mention three marriages and his eventual immigration to America, Mda struggled to remain his own man. With Sometimes There Is a Void, he shows that independence opened the way for the stories of individual South Africans in all their variety.
Synopsis
In the timeless kingdom of Mapungubwe, the royal sculptor had two sons, Chata and Rendani. As they grew, so grew their rivalryand their extraordinary talents. But while Rendani became a master carver of the animals that run in the wild hills and lush valleys of the land, Chata learned to carve fantastic beings from his dreams, creatures never before seen on the Earth.
From this natural rivalry between brothers, Zakes Mda crafts an irresistibly rich fable of love and family. What makes the better art, perfect mimicry or inspiration? Who makes the better wife, a princess or a mysterious dancer? Ageless and contemporary, deceptive in its simplicity and mythical in its scope, The Sculptors of Mapungubwe encompasses all we know of love, envy, and the artists primal power to forge art from nature and nature into art. Mdas newest novel will only strengthen his international reputation as one of the most trenchant voices of South Africa.
About the Author
Zakes Mda is a professor of creative writing at Ohio University. He has been a visiting professor at both Yale and the University of Vermont. Among his novels, The Heart of Redness (FSG, 2002) won the Richard Wright Zora Neale Hurston Legacy Award. He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Athens, Ohio.