The Heart of Redness: A Novel

Zakes Mda

May 2007 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About this ebook

A startling novel by the leading writer of the new South Africa

In The Heart of Redness -- shortlisted for the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize -- Zakes Mda sets a story of South African village life against a notorious episode from the country's past. The result is a novel of great scope and deep human feeling, of passion and reconciliation.

As the novel opens Camugu, who left for America during apartheid, has returned to Johannesburg. Disillusioned by the problems of the new democracy, he follows his "famous lust" to Qolorha on the remote Eastern Cape. There in the nineteenth century a teenage prophetess named Nonqawuse commanded the Xhosa people to kill their cattle and burn their crops, promising that once they did so the spirits of their ancestors would rise and drive the occupying English into the ocean. The failed prophecy split the Xhosa into Believers and Unbelievers, dividing brother from brother, wife from husband, with devastating consequences.

One hundred fifty years later, the two groups' decendants are at odds over plans to build a vast casino and tourist resort in the village, and Camugu is soon drawn into their heritage and their future -- and into a bizarre love triangle as well.

The Heart of Redness is a seamless weave of history, myth, and realist fiction. It is, arguably, the first great novel of the new South Africa -- a triumph of imaginative and historical writing.

Ratings and reviews

I am thoroughly disappointed in this book. I had to read this for a college literary criticism class and I can say that it is one of the worst books I have ever read. I was holding on for some hope but when Camagu ejaculate s in his pants, twice, I was lost. Mda is not my favorite writer and this book only solidifies my idea. The ending of this book left me with even more questions. I grew to despise every side of the argument between the believers and unbelievers. Would not read again...

I studied this as a college requirement as it relates to Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" I prefer this as it is a much more richly descriptive and balanced portrayal of African culture in comparison to the racist and insensitive portrayal of the 'uncivilized' 'savage' Continent' in Conrad's Darkness.

About the author

Zakes Mda, a novelist and playwright, has received every major South African prize for his work. Born in 1948, he has been a visiting professor at Yale and the University of Vermont. He is writer-in-residence at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. His previous novel, Ways of Dying, is available from Picador.