This first (1995) novel by the South African playwright and author
of The Heart of Redness (above) creates a vivid, bustling image of
contemporary Africa in transition from the unusual symbiotic
relationship between a bereaved former prostitute and a stoical
"professional mourner." In a time when government officials and
revolutionary "liberators" alike are orchestrating wholesale
slaughter of innocent villagers, middle-aged Toloki supports
himself as an itinerant paid mourner who grieves publicly at
strangers' funerals. During one unusual Christmas Day burial
service, he encounters Noria, once a notoriously wild young girl in
their common home village, whose young son has been murdered. They
form a strange, sexless union: a premise that, though it provides
relatively little in the way of drama, initiates a rhythmic
alternation of present-day experiences (rife with political
violence and peril) with extended flashbacks to their (briefly)
shared and (mostly) separate pasts. We learn a great deal about
Toloki's conflicted relationship with his harsh father Jwara (a
blacksmith and would-be artisan) and the manner in which Toloki has
sublimated his own artistic gifts, and also about Noria's
difficulties with her aloof majestic mother ("That Mountain Woman")
and the vagrant sexual life to which she was eventually driven. A
communal voice ("we live our lives as one") tells their stories,
also layering in colorful related tales involving such striking
characters as the wily pragmatic taxicab driver Shadrack, a
vainglorious archbishop (whose "war" with the young Toloki is one
of several such conflicts that echo the country's larger one),
Nefolovhowe the coffin-maker, and a compassionate "twilight mum"
(Madimvhaza) who cares for abandoned children. Their several
stories cohere to underscore the insight that has shaped Toloki's
life: "Death lives with us every day. Indeed our ways of dying are
our ways of living." The story falters in its final third, and it's
a mess structurally almost from start to finish. But that's largely
irrelevant, in a charming narrative that has the incremental
repetitive quality of a folk ballad spun out through successive
generations. Flawed or not, a terrific introduction to a
world-class literary talent. (Kirkus Reviews)
An acclaimed novel by a leading South African author. It is the
story of a professional mourner, whose odyssey takes him from a
rural village to the outskirts of a contemporary South African
city. It is magical, harsh, and funny. The style of writing is new
and exciting, using transliteration for example.
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