Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness
Zakes Mda’s novel The Heart of Redness uses the legendary story of the amaXhosa prophetess Nongqawuse and of the Cattle Killing Movement of 1856-57, as it was handed down to posterity through historical records and literary texts, particularly H. I. E. Dhlomo’s play The Girl Who Killed to Save: Nong...
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| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ces, |
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| Autor Principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
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Commonwealth Essays and Studies
2022
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| Acceso en liña: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:ces_9012 |
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openedition |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:ces_9012 https://doi.org/10.4000/ces.9012 urn:doi:10.4000/ces.9012 en https://journals.openedition.org/ces/9012 2022-04-10T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/dt2g https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness Commonwealth Essays and Studies SEPC (Société d’études des pays du Commonwealth) info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2534-6695 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2270-0633 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ces Samin, Richard Zakes Mda’s novel The Heart of Redness uses the legendary story of the amaXhosa prophetess Nongqawuse and of the Cattle Killing Movement of 1856-57, as it was handed down to posterity through historical records and literary texts, particularly H. I. E. Dhlomo’s play The Girl Who Killed to Save: Nongqawuse the Liberator (1936), to establish surprising and ironic correspondences between the past and the present. By evoking this tragic episode in the lives of the amaXhosa people and its reawakening in the present, Zakes Mda seems to follow a twofold agenda: he rewrites this historic episode from the point of view of a liberated South Africa and he examines the effects which the resurgence of the divisive issues of the past has on the present. The article focuses on how, through the rewriting of history, the South African past is being negotiated and how the novel through its own mode of writing conveys the ambiguities and contradictions of post-apartheid South Africa. |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| description |
Zakes Mda’s novel The Heart of Redness uses the legendary story of the amaXhosa prophetess Nongqawuse and of the Cattle Killing Movement of 1856-57, as it was handed down to posterity through historical records and literary texts, particularly H. I. E. Dhlomo’s play The Girl Who Killed to Save: Nongqawuse the Liberator (1936), to establish surprising and ironic correspondences between the past and the present. By evoking this tragic episode in the lives of the amaXhosa people and its reawakening in the present, Zakes Mda seems to follow a twofold agenda: he rewrites this historic episode from the point of view of a liberated South Africa and he examines the effects which the resurgence of the divisive issues of the past has on the present. The article focuses on how, through the rewriting of history, the South African past is being negotiated and how the novel through its own mode of writing conveys the ambiguities and contradictions of post-apartheid South Africa. |
| author |
Samin, Richard |
| spellingShingle |
Samin, Richard Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness |
| author_facet |
Samin, Richard |
| author_sort |
Samin, Richard |
| title |
Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness |
| title_short |
Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness |
| title_full |
Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness |
| title_fullStr |
Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness |
| title_sort |
nongqawuse resurrected: legend and history in zakes mda’s the heart of redness |
| publisher |
Commonwealth Essays and Studies |
| publishDate |
2022 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ces |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/ces.9012 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/ces/9012 |
| _version_ |
1877293220844535808 |