Malikhanye
Mxolisi Nyezwa
Mxolisi Nyezwa’s poems are both violent and tender, with an immediacy of language that strikes the reader like a cry, or a note of music. Malikhanye is his third book of poems after Song Trials (2000) and New Country (2008). The book’s title comes from the extended lyrical sequence following the death of his infant son Malikhanye, a poem of great humility and beauty.
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The climax is the sequence of poems “Malikhanye”, dedicated to his son, Malikhanye Nyezwa, who passed away at the age of three months. It is a work of haunting depth and tender irony, populated with startling images and intense juxtapositions. At its height it is the equal of Garcia Lorca’s “Elegy for Sancho Meijas”, and very reminiscent of Vallejo’s meditations on life and mortality and human suffering, full of probing and relentless reflections.
– Kyle Allan, LitNet
Date of publication: 2011
ISBN 978-0-9584915-9-4
66 pages
200 x 130
R120.00
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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Reviews of this book
Review by Kyle Allan of Malikhanye by Mxolisi Nyezwa LitNet, 2012
Review by Tom Penfold of Malikhanye by Mxolisi Nyezwa Africa in Words, 2014
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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