The failed prophecy split the Xhosa into Believers and Unbelievers, dividing brother from brother, wife from husband, with devastating consequences. There in the nineteenth century a teenage prophetess named Nonqawuse commanded the Xhosa people to kill their cattle and burn their crops, promising that once they did so the spirits of their ancestors would rise and drive the occupying English into the ocean. Disillusioned by the problems of the new democracy, he follows his 'famous lust' to Qolorha on the remote Eastern Cape. The result is a novel of great scope and deep human feeling, of passion and reconciliation.Īs the novel opens Camugu, who left for America during apartheid, has returned to Johannesburg. In The Heart of Redness - shortlisted for the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize - Zakes Mda sets a story of South African village life against a notorious episode from the country's past. Ways of Dying ) might prompt general overviews of the African literary scene.A startling novel by the leading writer of the new South Africa The publication of this novel (accompanied by the release of the paperback original of Mda's first novel, 7)įorecast: Championed by Nadine Gordimer, Mda represents a new, postapartheid generation of South African writers.

Mda's sympathies are with the Believers, but his eminent fairness forbids mere didacticism, and his joy in the back and forth of village politics beautifully communicates itself to the reader through poetic language enlivened by humor and irony. Secretly, however, Camagu lusts for Qukezwa, the squat but sexy daughter of Zim. He ends up being associated with the cold, beautiful Xoliswa Ximiya, Bhonco's daughter, whose scorn for tradition eventually drives her from the village.

Camagu originally comes to Qolorha looking for a woman whose memory haunts him. The Unbelievers want economic development.

The Believers oppose the changes they foresee coming to the village's traditions. The white store owner, Dalton, whose ancestor killed Zim and Bhonco's forefather, Xikixa, is on the Believers' side in the village's current controversy over whether or not to allow a casino in the village. The chief Believer is Zim his rival, the chief Unbeliever, is Bhonco. They put the onus for the distressing failure of Nongqawuse's visions on the Unbelievers' unbelief. In the village of Qolorha-by-Sea in the late 20th century, the Believers still flourish.

The war between the amaXhosa and the British in South Africa (known to Westerners as the Zulu Wars) was interrupted by a strange, messianic interlude in which the amaXhosa followed the self-destructive commands of the prophet Nongqawuse and were split between followers of Nongqawuse (Believers) and their opponents (Unbelievers). In Mda's richly suggestive novel, a Westernized African, Camagu, becomes embroiled in a village dispute that has its roots in the 19th century.

The heart of redness by zakes mda