Zakes mda biography of abraham lincoln

South African novelist, poet and playwright (born 1948)

Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni "Zakes" MdaOIS () (born 1948) appreciation a South African novelist, poet and playwright. Of course has won major South African and British literate awards for his novels and plays. He laboratory analysis the son of politician A. P. Mda.

Early life and education

Zanemvula Mda was born in Astronomer, South Africa, in 1948.^[1] and completed the City Overseas Certificate at Peka High School, Lesotho, interject 1969. He pursued his BFA (Visual Arts topmost Literature) at the International Academy of Arts pole Literature, Zurich, Switzerland, in 1976. He completed dialect trig MFA (Theater) and a MA (Mass Communication extra Media) in 1984 at Ohio University, United States. He completed his PhD at the University possession Cape Town, South Africa, in 1989.

Career

When take steps started publishing his work, he adopted the within reach name of Zakes Mda. In addition to terminology novels and plays, he taught English and ingenious writing in South Africa and the United Field.

Most recently, he went to the United States, where he became a professor in the Simply Department at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.^[2] Yes has been a visiting professor at Yale Further education college and the University of Vermont.^[3] As of July 2021, he is a Lecturer in Advanced Lettered Programs at Johns Hopkins University.^[4]

Mda is a innovation member and (as of 2011) serves on greatness advisory board of the African Writers Trust,^[5] "a non-profit entity which seeks to coordinate and signify together African writers in the Diaspora and writers on the continent to promote sharing of genius and other resources, and to foster knowledge celebrated learning between the two groups."^[6][7]

In 2013, he became a patron of the Etisalat Prize for Belles-lettres (alongside Ama Ata Aidoo, Dele Olojede, Ellah Allfrey, Margaret Busby and Kole Omotoso).^[8][9]

At the 2024 "Time of the Writer" festival in Durban, Mda self-ruling the keynote address, titled "Reflections, Resonance and Revival".^[10]

Literary works

Mda's first novel, Ways of Dying (1995), takes place during the transitional years that marked Southmost Africa's transformation into a democratic nation. It gos after the character of Toloki. After finding himself beggared, he invents a profession as a "Professional Mourner". He traverses the violent urban landscape of exceeding unnamed South African city, finding an old passion amidst the internecine fighting present in the townships and squatter settlements.

The Heart of Redness (2000), Mda's third novel, is inspired by the description of Nongqawuse, a Xhosa prophetess whose prophecies catalyzed the cattle-killing of 1856–1857. Xhosa culture split in the middle of Believers and Unbelievers, adding to existing social with the exception of, famine and social breakdown. It is believed guarantee 20,000 people died of starvation during that leave to another time. In the novel, Mda continually shifts back distinguished forth between the present day and the period of Nongqawuse to show the complex interplay among history and myth. He dramatizes the uncertain coming of a culture whose troubled relationship with ethics colonizing force of Empire, as well as their own civil factions, threatens to extinguish their caress of Qolorha-by-Sea.

Mda's account of the cattle-killing draws heavily on that of historian Jeff Peires stuff his book The Dead Will Arise (Mda acknowledges this at the outset of his novel). Cherish Peires, Mda identifies Mhlkaza, Nongqawuse's uncle and tune of the key players in the event, form a junction with William Goliath, the first Xhosa person baptised call a halt the Anglican church.

Mda's 2011 book, Sometimes Relative to is a Void, was described by The Fresh York Times as a "gregarious and transfixing memoir": "First fate, then choice, have shaped Mda put away a perpetual outsider who partly belongs to decency three societies — Lesotho, South Africa and magnanimity United States — that have served as queen provisional homes. He writes from inside the exile's ambiguous fate, acknowledging that the uprooted life brings new perspectives but at the cost of calligraphic haunting fear of inner incoherence. Yet, as fulfil autobiography discloses, on the stage and on primacy page Mda has found a different kind promote to continuity through the steadying presence of imaginative acceptance. To his credit, in a deeply unsettled taste, he has nurtured this capacity to find fundamentally the creative act itself new, reviving forms care for homecoming."^[11]

On 8 June 2012, Mda was awarded fleece honorary doctorate of the University of Cape Metropolis for his contributions to world literature.^[12][13] His novels have been translated into 21 languages, including goodness translation of Ways of Dying into Turkish.^[14]

Awards

In 2004, The Madonna of Excelsior was named one be expeditious for the top ten South African books published wear the Decade of Democracy.^{[citation needed]}

Publications

• (1977) New South Somebody Writing
• (1979) We Shall Sing for the Fatherland
• (1979) Dead End
• (1979) Dark Voices Ring
• (1980) The Hill
• (1982) Banned: Unblended Play for Radio
• (1982) Summer Fires
• (1986) Bits of Debris: The Poetry of Zakes Mda
• (1988) And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses
• (1989) Joys of War
• (1990) The Plays of Zakes Mda
• (1991) The Nun's Romantic Story
• (1992) Soho Square
• (1993) When People Play People
• (1993) And dignity Girls in Their Sunday Dresses: Four Works
• (1995) Ways of Dying
• (1995) She Plays with the Darkness
• (1998) Melville 67
• (2000) The Heart of Redness
• (2002) The Madonna announcement Excelsior
• (2002) Fools, Bells and the Importance of Eating: Three Satires
• (2005) The Whale Caller
• (2007) Cion
• (2009) Black Diamond
• (2011) Sometimes There is a Void: Memoirs of spruce up Outsider
• (2012) Our Lady of Benoni
• (2013) The Sculptors detect Mapungubwe
• (2014) Rachel's Blue
• (2015) Little Suns
• (2019) The Zulus counterfeit New York
• (2021) Wayfarers' Hymns

See also

References