The only pull-quote on the front cover of this book: “Zakes Mda may have a more central place in South Africa’s literary and political spheres than any other novelist today.” — The New York Times High praise but not surprising, considering his latest novel, Little Suns, had just won the Barry Ronge Prize for Fiction and was featured in every bookstore when I visited Cape Town. A quick Google search confirmed for me that it’s as impressive as it sounds — the country’s biggest prize […]
The Joys of Motherhood
Oof. This book. This is the third of my ten African books this year, and my favorite so far. The chapters are short and poignant but flow together to paint a larger, brighter picture of traditional African society and one woman’s place in it. The characters live hard, determined lives. There’s a drastic distance between rural village and urban (Lagos, in this case.) It reminded me a bit of Things Fall Apart, since the story is told plainly, almost in the style of a folk […]