Word: nkosi
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POLITICAL REPRESSION and turmoil are often accompanied by an outbreak of literary activity, and the case of South Africa is no exception. Mating Birds, the first novel of Lewis Nkosi, a young Black South African writer, is a story set in and expressly concerned with the current political and social conditions of South Africa. It is short, clear, direct and intensely unforgiving--a cry from the heart, dedicated to "my grandmother, Esther Makatini, who washed white people's clothes so that I could learn to write...
...Lewis Nkosi...
What is missing in subtlety, however, is more than compensated for in power. Nkosi knows his strengths and utilizes them effectively. His tone is never affected or presumptuous but is always immediately understandable and often colorful and refreshingly poetic. He is writing about a world he knows first hand, as is clearly and beautifully evident in images such as those of the Zulu homeland. And the entire novel is suffused with the intensely emotional voice of a man who cares deeply about his country and who tries--and succeeds--in expressing that passion through his writing...
...song ("What shall we do to the Boers who shot the people of Soweto?"). Outside, police, occasionally using attack dogs, dispersed a crowd of blacks waiting in Church Square. There were scuffles, and several people were arrested. A small group of women, swathed in brightly patterned blankets, began singing Nkosi Sikelele Afrika (God Bless Africa), the ANC's anthem...
...Long Bar of Meikle's Hotel in Salisbury, white Rhodesians were clinking bottles and roaring the merry refrain of Land of Hope and Glory. From the African bar at the other corner of the building came a throaty Nkosi Si-kelele Afrika (God Bless Africa). "There you have it," said a Rhodesian businessman as he listened to both. "Take a man from one of those bars, push him into the other, and it would be like throwing in a hand grenade. Britain and the rest of the world can do what they like, but this is what Rhodesia...