“If I don’t write I will run mad,” he declares. “It would serve no good purpose for me to stop writing. There are stories that must be told and they will continue to nag me until I tell them.”
Throughout his 68 years, Zakes Mda has heeded his nagging stories and told them through dozens of novels, plays, poems, film scripts and through his art.
About 19 people had been charged with contravening the Immorality Act, which forbade “interracial” sex. Dozens of journalists from around the world had descended on Excelsior to write about the scandal in 1970.
“I found myself wondering what had happened to the people in those cases. I wondered what had happened to the children born out of that miscegenation – as it was called. So I went to find out. Then my research began. In other words these stories find me. I don’t find them. They come to me and say: ‘I have an interesting story to tell. Narrate me.’ And I do.”
He stops talking briefly to order his breakfast at the Grahamstown B&B where he is staying. “Cornflakes and milk, please. It is all I want today.”
He turns his attention away from breakfast and back to the art of story telling.
Mda believes every historical novel should have relevance in the present.
“We write historical novels to address the present. They are actually about the present. It’s not history for its own sake. The past always has a strong presence in our present.”
He says often, while writing, he is not aware of the relevance of his work to current times.
He cites the example of when Little Suns was published. He was contacted by a lawyer working on AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo’s case. He said the lawyer had been astonished at the parallels between the characters in his book and Dalindyebo’s case.
At the time the king, who was facing charges of attempted murder, arson, kidnapping and assault, was claiming that customary law had given him the power to interrogate and punish.
“My novel also explores a dual legal system and the conflict between them. The colonisers imposed their law and kings felt it impinged on their powers bestowed by traditional law.”
Mda also tells his stories through art. He has produced a series of paintings called The Man in the Green Blanket that centre on the Marikana massacre. In each painting the man in a bright green blanket stands out from the other protesting miners around him.
He scrolls through his phone to find photos of the stunning series of paintings that are all based on the mysterious man with a beautiful smile wearing a bright green blanket who appeared in so many photographs during the Marikana protests.
The last photo taken was of his broken, dead body huddled underneath the now dusty trademark green blanket. The man, Mgcineni Noki, has subsequently become a revered symbol of protest.
Mda says his writing and painting go together.
“Painting is my release. Writing gets me possessed with demons that drive me and when I paint I release those demons. It helps if, after a session of writing, I paint something.”
Mda, who was born in Herschel in the Eastern Cape, remains a South African to the core and a suggestion that South Africa had “lost” him to the US angers him.
He has studied and worked in the US since 1981. He had returned in 1994 when the arrival of democracy brought back much of South Africa’s exiled talent.
But, as an outspoken critic of the political elite, he was unable to find work in South Africa and returned to the US where he went on to become a professor in the English department of Ohio University.
The suggestion that an ungrateful nation had lost him to the US had not seemed extreme. He disagreed.
He frowns and hitches up jeans held up by his trademark bright, colourful braces stretched over an expansive belly. His black Homburg hat dips in annoyance.
“That is a wrong question. I don’t like it. I am an international artist. I just work in the United States. But I work here too. I run projects with rural women in Herschel in the Eastern Cape. Not many people get their hands dirty like I do. I come to South Africa often. I contribute to society here, which very few do.”
He says he “carries his South Africa with him” even though he works abroad. “I am an active participant in the life of South Africa wherever I am.”
He also rejects that South Africans had ever been ungrateful to him. “I am widely read here. One has to separate out the political elite – who may not like me – to the general public, that do.”
Mda says he comes to South Africa almost every two months. He is currently here as part of the Arts and Culture Department’s Africa Month celebrations.
He says he is optimistic about the country’s democracy, which had proved resilient against attempts by the likes of President Jacob Zuma to “subvert it”.
“We continue to have freedom of expression, a strong, robust, critical and investigative free press, freedom of association, and an independent judiciary which even finds against a sitting president.”
At 68, Mda shows no signs of slowing down. Apart from his The Man in the Green Blanket painting series, he is already hard at work on a new book.
Zulus of New York is set in New York between 1879 and 1893, a period in which Africans were imported to perform their “savage” dances for local audiences.
The book is in its early days but it gives Mda fans something to look forward to early next year.
Mda’s stories force way out
Throughout his 68 years, Zakes Mda has heeded his nagging stories and told them through dozens of novels, plays, poems, film scripts and through his art.
About 19 people had been charged with contravening the Immorality Act, which forbade “interracial” sex. Dozens of journalists from around the world had descended on Excelsior to write about the scandal in 1970.
“I found myself wondering what had happened to the people in those cases. I wondered what had happened to the children born out of that miscegenation – as it was called. So I went to find out. Then my research began. In other words these stories find me. I don’t find them. They come to me and say: ‘I have an interesting story to tell. Narrate me.’ And I do.”
He stops talking briefly to order his breakfast at the Grahamstown B&B where he is staying. “Cornflakes and milk, please. It is all I want today.”
He turns his attention away from breakfast and back to the art of story telling.
Mda believes every historical novel should have relevance in the present.
“We write historical novels to address the present. They are actually about the present. It’s not history for its own sake. The past always has a strong presence in our present.”
He says often, while writing, he is not aware of the relevance of his work to current times.
He cites the example of when Little Suns was published. He was contacted by a lawyer working on AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo’s case. He said the lawyer had been astonished at the parallels between the characters in his book and Dalindyebo’s case.
At the time the king, who was facing charges of attempted murder, arson, kidnapping and assault, was claiming that customary law had given him the power to interrogate and punish.
“My novel also explores a dual legal system and the conflict between them. The colonisers imposed their law and kings felt it impinged on their powers bestowed by traditional law.”
Mda also tells his stories through art. He has produced a series of paintings called The Man in the Green Blanket that centre on the Marikana massacre. In each painting the man in a bright green blanket stands out from the other protesting miners around him.
He scrolls through his phone to find photos of the stunning series of paintings that are all based on the mysterious man with a beautiful smile wearing a bright green blanket who appeared in so many photographs during the Marikana protests.
The last photo taken was of his broken, dead body huddled underneath the now dusty trademark green blanket. The man, Mgcineni Noki, has subsequently become a revered symbol of protest.
Mda says his writing and painting go together.
“Painting is my release. Writing gets me possessed with demons that drive me and when I paint I release those demons. It helps if, after a session of writing, I paint something.”
Mda, who was born in Herschel in the Eastern Cape, remains a South African to the core and a suggestion that South Africa had “lost” him to the US angers him.
He has studied and worked in the US since 1981. He had returned in 1994 when the arrival of democracy brought back much of South Africa’s exiled talent.
But, as an outspoken critic of the political elite, he was unable to find work in South Africa and returned to the US where he went on to become a professor in the English department of Ohio University.
The suggestion that an ungrateful nation had lost him to the US had not seemed extreme. He disagreed.
He frowns and hitches up jeans held up by his trademark bright, colourful braces stretched over an expansive belly. His black Homburg hat dips in annoyance.
“That is a wrong question. I don’t like it. I am an international artist. I just work in the United States. But I work here too. I run projects with rural women in Herschel in the Eastern Cape. Not many people get their hands dirty like I do. I come to South Africa often. I contribute to society here, which very few do.”
He says he “carries his South Africa with him” even though he works abroad. “I am an active participant in the life of South Africa wherever I am.”
He also rejects that South Africans had ever been ungrateful to him. “I am widely read here. One has to separate out the political elite – who may not like me – to the general public, that do.”
Mda says he comes to South Africa almost every two months. He is currently here as part of the Arts and Culture Department’s Africa Month celebrations.
He says he is optimistic about the country’s democracy, which had proved resilient against attempts by the likes of President Jacob Zuma to “subvert it”.
“We continue to have freedom of expression, a strong, robust, critical and investigative free press, freedom of association, and an independent judiciary which even finds against a sitting president.”
At 68, Mda shows no signs of slowing down. Apart from his The Man in the Green Blanket painting series, he is already hard at work on a new book.
Zulus of New York is set in New York between 1879 and 1893, a period in which Africans were imported to perform their “savage” dances for local audiences.
The book is in its early days but it gives Mda fans something to look forward to early next year.
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