Cion


In this exuberant follow-up to Ways of Dying, the celebrated South African novelist and playwright Mda once again centers his story upon the professional mourner Toloki—this time, as he makes his way through a sad and surreal America. Set on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, the novel fixes its outsider gaze on everything from Billionaires for Bush to late-night television, viewing American cultural and political life through a near-anthropological lens. But there is much heart here, too, as Toloki is taken in by an impoverished Southern family; he befriends the son, Obed; falls in love with his melancholy, sitar-playing sister, Orpah; and learns to quilt from their mother, Ruth. Simultaneously, he learns how the quilts link Ruth's ancestry to the slave trade and, in particular, the escape of Nicodemus and Abednego, the beloved sons of a slave called The Abyssinian Queen. Cross-cutting between the slave story and Toloki's experiences, the book offers a rich and original picture of the United States on both a personal and grander historical level and is suffused with the same lyricism, vividness and dark, tragic wit that have earned the author previous recognition here and in his homeland.
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The Heart of Redness

This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in years. Mda skillfully evokes the tensions in contemporary South Africa for blacks caught between the tug of Western, technological culture and their identity in long-standing traditions. The story is given added substance by Mda's recounting the history of similar tensions from the nineteenth century, thus creating deep emotions that propel the characters. The story mixes family feuds, spats between the sexes, and sober deliberations about community versus individual choices, all told with a level of humor that underscores rather than undermines the importance of these issues for South Africa today. --William Gutowski


The Madonna of Excelsior

This is an elemental South African story of relationships across the color line, first at the height of apartheid's madness and then during the freedom struggle and the ongoing transition to democracy. As in Heart of Redness (2002), Mda tells the big story through the personal lives of a few intimately connected people. The first chapters are based on a notorious 1970s trial in which whites and blacks in one small town were convicted under the Immorality Act for the crime of miscegenation. The focus is on a black woman, Niki, and her "Coloured" (mixed-race) daughter, Popi, whose white father commits suicide after the public disgrace. Popi has a white half-brother and also a black brother, who grows up to be a guerrilla fighter. In the transition, Popi becomes a city councilor, always ashamed of her body, an outsider to whites and blacks in the community. But all their identities shift with reconciliation and revenge, corruption and nostalgia. Mda writes from the inside with a rare combination of passion and truth that will connect with readers everywhere. Hazel Rochman
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I didn’t think much of it when my 13 year old daughter came home from school with a stack of new books she had purchased at her school’s book fair. Then the titles of the books caught my eye. Titles like “Crank” and “Burned” and “Impulse” put me on my heels real quick. Visions of books that glorified drug usage and self abuse filled me with fear for my child.

I took the books from my daughter, and gave each one a quick perusal. Then I looked them up on Amazon. It turned out that all the books she purchased were very anti drug use, anti self abuse. They presented the agonies of falling into the abyss of the drug world and other dismal activities that suck the joy out of life in language that will have quite an impact on teenage girls. For instance, after reading “Crank,” my daughter came to me said she was terrified of drugs. She never wanted to take even a Tylenol ever again.

Although I believe parents should take a look at these titles before they allow their children to read them, I do recommend them to parents who feel their teenage girl is at a stage where she would benefit from understanding the horrors of drug usage, and self abuse. If you do allow your child to read any of these books be prepared discuss to what your child has read, because they are likely to come to you with questions.

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