Zakes Mda
(Herschel, Zuid-Afrika, 1948) is a playwright, writer, academic, painter, filmer and one of the most important novellists in South Africa. At birth he was named as Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda, but his street friends in Soweto called him Zakes. He studied in the U.S.A., Great Britain, Lesotho and Capetown. His first collection of poems Bits of Debris appeared in 1986 and his first novella Ways of Dying appeared in 1995. Presently Zakes Mda commutes between Johannesburg, where he works as a dramatist, and Ohio, where he works as a tutor of English/creative writing. With his novel Het rode hart (The red heart)(2002) Mda won the Commonwealth Writers Prize Africa Regions and the South African Sunday Times Fiction Award. The Dutch translation of Ways of dying will be published in the spring of 2004 by De Geus publishers.
WIN2003
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Archive available for: Zakes Mda
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Winternachten - Preview
With: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Antjie Krog, Chirikure Chirikure, Denise Jannah, Lasana M. Sekou, Michaël Zeeman, Nelleke Noordervliet, Putu Wijaya, Robert Menasse, Syahrial & Grup, Tessa Leuwsha, Tom Gilling, Zakes Mda
Before Winternachten starts with its major programme, the journalist and literary critic Michaël Zeeman gives his view on the theme of this year's festival: future and ideals. After this, writer Nelleke Noordervliet presents a varied programme with writers, poets and music. Foreign authors present themselves with a short reading, as a preview on their performance in the coming weekend. With writers from Suriname, Saint Martin, South-Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia, Austria, the USA and Indonesia, and music by the Sumatran group Syahrial & Grup and jazz singer Denise Jannah.
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Is groot kak coming?
Is South-Africa developing in the same direction as Zimbabwe? Who will live longer: the cynic or the idealist, the traditionalist or the innovator? What is the effect of Apartheid on the private lives of people? Three South-African writers Zakes Mda, Damon Galgut en K. Sello Duiker on the present mindfield of neuroses in their country. English spoken.
