We claim to know nations by their literature: James Joyce’s Ireland, Dostoevsky’s Russia, Mark Twain’s America. But these writers are old; in fact, they’re dead. So, this hour we begin a series on world literature today.
We’ll be talking with writers in nations caught up in change, where the old politics and the old literature no longer apply. Today, South Africa. The novelist Alan Paton once said, “If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn’t concern the central issues, it wouldn’t be worth publishing.” Well, those central issues have changed. And the novelist Zakes Mda is stepping into the breach.
The black writer embraces, with the sheer joy of discovery, the infinite themes that emerge once art is liberated from the demands of the liberation struggle.
Zakes Mda will be reading this afternoon at the Barker Center at Harvard University at 4:30 pm.
Guests:
Zakes Mda, author of “The Heart of Redness”.