- Title
- Storytelling and social commentary in a comparison of Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying (1995) and Black Diamond (2009)
- Creator
- Thackwray, Sarah
- Subject
- South African literature (English) -- Black authors -- History and criticism
- Subject
- Politics in literature
- Subject
- Storytelling -- South Africa
- Date Issued
- 2017
- Date
- 2017
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/7149
- Identifier
- vital:21265
- Description
- In a comparison of two novels, Ways of Dying (1995) and Black Diamond (2009), this dissertation examines Zakes Mda's ongoing use of fiction in presenting incisive social commentary in the post-apartheid literary context. Mda's debut novel is a complex magic realist tale of Toloki, the professional mourner, who journeys from the village to the urban township. It is markedly different from his post-millennial satire, which invokes the social realist form, constructing a rapidly unfolding plot of urban gangsters, crime and sex, in which the characters are more representational than well-developed. While Ways of Dying has been praised as Mda's thought-provoking novel of the transition, Black Diamond has sometimes been criticised as being less able to comment significantly on the state of post-millennial South Africa. Subsequently, this dissertation evaluates the potential of Mda's most recent fictional portrayal of post-apartheid society to provide a meaningful interpretation of and commentary on post-apartheid South Africa, alongside his earlier novel.
- Format
- 96 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Arts
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
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