Professor Zakes Mda recently had a chat to Crawford Sandton Preparatory’s Grade 5s about his new children’s book The Prels of Ukhahlamba.
Zakes is the author of the novels, Ways of Dying and The Heart of Redness, among many others. He was born in the Eastern Cape, spent his early childhood in Soweto, and completed his schooling in Lesotho.
He is a prolific writer of novels, plays, poems and articles for academic journals and newspapers. His writing has been translated into 20 languages. His creative work also includes painting, and theatre and film productions.
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The schoolchildren were fortunate enough to also meet his son, Neo, who illustrated the book.
The children heard Zakes’ story and the reasons behind his writing this new children’s fantasy book.
Masego Nkadimeng, asked for tips to assist her to become a great author and Zakes’ response was that children should read as much as possible, by a variety of authors from different countries, as this is the way they will learn how different stories are told.
His advice was that even if the first story or stories written were not that great, they should take both the positive and negative criticism given. “That way, they will improve and become better writers.”
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He added that the children should try to never lose their ability to create fantasy stories and to keep their wonderful imaginations.
Zakes ended the day by reading some excerpts from his book to the schoolchildren.
