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Yet his gift, in addition to being an extraordinary writer, is to infuse the past with meaning, to make urgent the challenges of the present, and to reveal the gentle, often stinging, human comedy in both.--\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe extraordinary social and political transformation of South Africa as it affects the residents of the village of Excelsior.Zakes Mda, a canny writer, knows that sometimes the best way to approach history is to view it through the lives of people at its periphery.[Mda is] a subtle and evocative writer who can range from lyricism to satire with surprising effect, and never descends to the formulaic.--Charles Matthews, \u003ci\u003eThe Tallahassee Democrat\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eZakes Mda 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. 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Here is a man looking back on his life and country with joy and sorrow.\"--John Freeman, \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eSouth African novelist and playwright Zakes Mda's remarkable life story of growing up in South Africa, Lesotho, and America, told with style and gusto.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The most acclaimed South African writer of his generation, Zakes Mda's novels venture far beyond the conventional narratives of a people's struggle against apartheid. In this memoir, he tells of a life that intersects with the politics of his country--a story that is, at its heart, the classic adventure of an artist, lover, and bon vivant.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Living in exile with his father in Basutoland (now Lesotho) during the first pangs of his country's independence, a series of brutal and poignant initiations ushered him toward the life of a writer--and that of a perpetual outsider. 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Mda presents us with the consequences of transgression: that which is seen as polluted and judged to be dangerous to the good health and purity of a group, a society, a culture. Taboos, superstition, customs and moral ethics become the subjects of inquiry and are, at times, subjected to ribald satire. This play cuts into a virtuoso style of theatre that can in no way be confused with the objectives and methods of conventional realism. Mda establishes a unique style and tone that is innovative, entertaining and challenging. It fuses satirical elements derived from classical poetry with a modernist sensibility that synthesises Brechtian and Absurdist features of theatricality, using characters as types and montage. Above all, in this work there is a profound exploration of what it means to operate in the politically charged landscape that defines post-apartheid South Africa with its cultural pluralities and differentials in access to resources and agency. 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