Bilakhulu!
Vonani Bila
Bilakhulu! is a book of seven poems varying in length from three pages to over 30 pages. They are narrative poems, politically outspoken yet personal, buoyant with vitality and humour. Though immersed in the poet’s rural village and the marginalised communities of South Africa’s cities, they embrace the wider world.
Vonani Bila has written: ‘I believe in poetry’s ability to cut across frontiers. It transmits its poison or honey to readers or potential readers in aeroplanes, airconditioned university lecture rooms, mansions, hotel en suites and to their children who roam around our colossal shopping malls. Poetry’s readers may also be found in barbershops, spaza shops, or village schools somewhere in Limpopo, or under trees, in hair and beauty salons, in taxis and bus stations, taverns, churches, stokvels, threadbare soccer fields, or jazz pubs.’
Date of publication: 2015
ISBN 978-0-9870282-5-9 / ebook ISBN 978-1-928476-21-4
96 pages
205 x 140mm
R160.00
Vonani Bila 2017 |
Vonani Bila grew up in Shirley Village, Limpopo, from where he used to walk 14 kilometres daily to Lemana High School in Elim. His expansive poetry continues the tradition of South African resistance poetry of the 1970s and 1980s, exposing with anger and humour the callousness of the post-apartheid government, and giving voice to the poor and marginalised and the victims of violence, both domestic and political. Bila is also a cultural activist, founder of the Timbila Poetry Project, which has published many books of poetry as well as the literary journal Timbila. He is the author of eight storybooks in English, Northern Sotho and Xitsonga for newly literate adult readers, and two children’s books, as well as being a co-compiler of a Xitsonga monolingual dictionary. He is currently a lecturer in English at the University of Limpopo. Incantatory, attentive, [Vonani Bila is] a poet of searing honesty who did not leave behind his critical eye with the end of apartheid but also measures the brutalities of the present. Yet, he is also a poet of patience and gentleness, and his meditation on the love story of a political activist is unforgettable . . . Bila [proves that] politics is alive in South African writing, but its domain is longer than the struggle. – Gabeba Baderoon Books published |
Additional information
| Weight | 0.5 kg |
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Interviews & Articles
Interview with Vonani Bila by Gary Cumminskey Dye Hard Interviews, 2010 text PDF
Interview with Vonani Bila by Elizabeth Sutton New England Review, 2018 text PDF
Article on Vonani Bila by Moffat Sebola and Olufemi Abodunrin: "Not Yet Uhuru: Aspects of Social Realism in Vonani Bila’s Selected Poetry" Journal of African Languages and Literary Studies, 2021 text PDF
Article on Vonani Bila by Raphael d’Abdon: "Resistance Poetry in Post-apartheid South Africa: An Analysis of the Poetic Works and Cultural Activism of Vonani Bila" South African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2014 text PDF
Other Links
Biography on Vonani Bila
Biography on Vonani Bila by Liesl Jobson Poetry International
Poetry by Vonani Bila
Poetry by Vonani Bila featured by Gary Cummiskey (ed.) Big Bridge, 2009
Poetry by Vonani Bila Herri #07, 2023
Poetry readings by Vonani Bila
Various poems read by Vonani Bila The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Collective on Youtube, 2023
Vonani Bila reads his poem "Friday Night" Around the Weird on YouTube, 2023
Tribute (in Spanish) to the poetry of Vonani Bila Mi Tierra on Facebook, 2022
Vonani Bila reads his poem "Loko mpfula a yo sewula" (Xitsonga) Voices of Africa, 2015
Essays and articles by Vonani Bila
Essay by Vonani Bila: "The Shifting Fortunes Of A Performing Poet" Chimurenga, 2015
Article by Vonani Bila: "Ku Hluvukile eka ‘Zete’: Recovering history and heritage through the influence of Xitsonga disco muso, Obed Ngobeni" HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 2021
Vonani Bila writes about his 2005 residency at the Caversham Centre Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts (JGCBA)
Review by Vonani Bila
Review by Vonani Bila of KwaNobuhle Overcast by Ayanda Bille The Johannesburg Review of Books, 2020 text PDF
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