Transformation of ordinary places into imaginative space in Zakes Mda's writing

Ina Gräbe

pp. 161-179

in: Attiede Lange, Gail Fincham, Jeremy Hawthorn, Jakob Lothe, Attie de Lange (eds), Literary landscapes, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008

Abstract

This chapter investigates Zakes Mda's versatile use of space in depicting rural and urban localities. These reflect either the hardship of social inequality or the turmoil brought about by political intolerance in contemporary South African society, in the period from the 1990s to the present. I will scrutinize Mda's uncanny ability to transform places reflecting a seemingly bleak existence into an imaginary space of artistic creativity. In the three novels to be discussed, this refiguring of otherwise ordinary or dreary places is achieved in different ways: Ways of Dying (1995) creatively transforms deadly places into liveable places; The Heart of Redness (2000) uncovers the magic inherent in rural localities, while The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) effects an artist's reading of the landscape through its paintings of specific scenes.