Dance of Life The Novels of Zakes Mda in Post-apartheid South Africa [Paperback]

In recent years, the work of Zakes Mdanovelist, painter, composer, theater director and filmmakerhas attracted worldwide critical attention. Gail Finchams book examines the five novels Mda has written since South Africas transition to democracy:Ways of Dying(1995),The Heart of Redness(2000), The Madonna of Excelsior(2002),The Whale Caller(2005), andCion(2007).Dance of Lifeexplores how refigured identity is rooted in Mdas strongly painterly imagination that creates changed spaces in memory and culture. Through a combination of magic realism, African orature, and intertextuality with the Western canon, Mda rejects dualistic thinking of the past and the present, the human and the nonhuman, the living and the dead, the rural and the urban. He imbues his fictional characters with the power to orchestrate a reconfigured subjectivity that is simultaneously political, social, and aesthetic.

Dance of Lifeoffers a wealth of critical?insights into mdas novels in chapters?that are compellingly argued, very?perceptive in their readings of individual?works, utterly persuasive in the overall?argument that is developed, and presented?in a lively style that makes for a?very satisfying reading experience.?. . . the book may serve both as a work?for the literary specialist and as an?introduction to mda for the newcomer.?it will make an important and necessary?contribution to mda studies.?
Johan U. Jacobs, coeditor?with David Bell ofWays of Writing:?Critical Essays on Zakes Mda