Bhlawa’s Inconsolable Spirits
Mxolisi Nyezwa
Bhlawa’s Inconsolable Spirits is a startling, graphic, often humorous memoir, constructed from fragments of poetic prose. Determined to understand everything, the young Nyezwa turns to writing to ‘train himself to see’. In his vision no boundaries exist between imagination, day-to-day survival, spiritual reality and economic violence: ‘What everyone saw up there at night in Bhlawa, and called the moon, was just the hungry face of God.’
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Just as Mxolisi wanders the streets of Bhlawa experiencing the physical and spiritual worlds simultaneously, fully aware of the spirits surrounding him, Bhlawa’s Inconsolable Spirits is a beautifully poetic yet sometimes harrowing work in which optimism and pessimism, light and dark, comedy and tragedy, and life and death, exist side by side.
– Gary Cummiskey, News24
Date of publication: 2023
ISBN 978-1-928476-48-1 / ebook ISBN 978-1-928476-49-8
160 pages
200 x 130mm
R220.00
Mxolisi Nyezwa 2024 © Sidima Mazwi
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Mxolisi Nyezwa was born in 1967 in Bhlawa, New Brighton, Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha. He is the author of three books of poems in English, a book of isiXhosa poems and a prose poetry memoir. His poetry has appeared in several anthologies in South Africa and internationally. In 1997 Nyezwa founded the multilingual cultural journal Kotaz, which he still edits, as well as publishing literary books in isiXhosa under the imprint Imbizo Arts. He runs a small business centre and urban chicken farm in Motherwell, outside Gqeberha. Books published Memoir |
Additional information
| Weight | 0.5 kg |
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Interviews & Articles
Interview with Mxolisi Nyezwa by Gary Cummiskey Dye Hard Interviews, 2012
Interview with Mxolisi Nyezwa by Alan Finlay New Coin, 2008 text PDF
Article by Tom Penfold on Mxolisi Nyezwa Social Dynamics, 2016 text PDF
Article by Mxolisi Nyezwa: "Listening with one ear – Maskandi lyrics and their potential to revitalise isiXhosa poetry" New Coin, 2018 text PDF
Article by Mxolisi Nyezwa: "Trauma and Image" Colloquium Paper, 2017 text PDF
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