ACCLAIMED producer, Duma ka Ndlovu, is on a mission to get South Africans and the government to motivate for author, Zakes Mda, to be selected for the Nobel Literature Prize.
“Two hundred years from now, his name will still be on the lips of people because of the literature he has contributed to society. He is the most prolific writer and if we go back into our archives, you will find that he has done more for South African and world literature than any other black writer. We need to start doing whatever we can to start motivating for him to be selected for the Nobel Literature Prize,” said Ka Ndlovu, who spoke at the Articulate Africa Book and Art Fair at the weekend.
The call by Ka Ndlovu was received with great joy from the audience that gathered at the ‘Voices of Africa’ stage. “That campaign needs to be launched this year and we are glad that even the city officials are here, so they will be able to take this forward. It is evident that this book, we are discussing today, needs to be made into a movie. It needs to be produced locally with South African actors and hopefully it can go on to win many awards,” said one audience member.
Meanwhile, Mda said he was honoured to be part of the event and thanked the organisers. “I am glad to be here and share my new book The Zulus of New York. This book tells the story of a group of Zulus who were sent to England and later the United States in the 1880s by William Leonard Hunt, also known as The Great Farini, to perform as ‘human curiosities’ or ‘freak shows’ in his popular circus.
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“The novel is centred around the life of one of these Zulu performers, tracing from Ondini in KwaZulu-Natal where he was one of the two highly-esteemed warriors who ritually bathed King Cetshwayo in his sacred Inkatha hut, to his escape after a botched tryst with one of the harem woman, to his sojourn in Cape Town where he is recruited by The Great Farini to his performances in London, and finally to New York where he falls into unrequited love with a Dinka woman, another caged exhibit,” said Mda.
The novel is based on historical events, an era during the height of Zulu popularity, their victory over the British at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. It was during this time that the Zulus performed at some major venues including Madison Square Gardens in New York.
Mda has been awarded honorary doctorates in literature by the universities of Cape Town and the Free State, in technology by the Central University of Technology, and in art by Dartmouth College. He has published 22 books, 10 of which are novels. His works have been translated into 20 languages, including Catalan, Dutch, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Serbian, Swedish and Turkish. They have won a number of awards in South Africa, the US and Italy, including the Amstel Playwright of the Year Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the M-Net Prize, the Sanlam Prize (twice), The Pringle Award, the Sunday Times Literary Prize, the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award, the Premio Narrativa Sud del Mondo, the University of Johannesburg Literary Prize, the American Library Association Notable Book Prize and the Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize. Mda is a recipient of the Ikhamanga Order in Silver from the South African government.
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