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 people's 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 Soweto's 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 Mda's 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 Dvorak 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
"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
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 people's 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 country's 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
South African novelist and playwright Zakes Mda's remarkable life story of growing up in South Africa, Lesotho, and America, told with style and gusto.
The most acclaimed South African writer of his generation, Zakes Mda's novels venture far beyond the conventional narratives of a people's 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 country's 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
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.
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.