Zakes Mda

Author Information
Zakes Mda's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    11 Books (1 Series)
  • First Book:
    August 2002
  • Latest Book:
    December 2019
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Full Series List in Order

Toloki

1 - Ways of Dying (Aug-2002)
2 - Cion (Aug-2007)

Book List in Order: 11 titles

  • The Heart of Redness

    Camugu, recently returned to Johannesburg and disillusioned by the new democracy moves to the remote Eastern Cape. There in the nineteenth century a teenage prophetess commanded the Xhosa people to kill their cattle and burn their crops, promising th...

  • Ways of Dying

    Toloki - 1

    Winner of the M-Net Book PrizeShortlisted for the CNA and Noma Awards In Ways of Dying, Zakes Mda's acclaimed first novel, Toloki is a "professional mourner" in a vast and violent city of the new South Africa. Day after day he attends funerals in the...

  • The Madonna of Excelsior

    A new novel by a towering presence in contemporary South African literatureIn 1971, nineteen citizens of Excelsior in South Africa's white-ruled Free State were charged with breaking apartheid's Immorality Act, which forbade sex between blacks and wh...

  • She Plays with the Darkness

    In a remote mountain village in Lesotho, the beautiful Dikosha lives for dancing and for song, setting herself apart from her fellow villagers. Her twin brother, Radisene, works in the lowland capital of Maseru, struggling amid political upheaval to ...

  • The Whale Caller

    "A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration." --The New York TimesThe Whale Caller, Zakes Mda's fifth novel, is his most enchanting and accessible book yet-a romantic comedy of sorts in which the changing face of post-aparthe...

  • Cion

    Toloki - 2

    The hero of Zakes Mda's beloved Ways of Dying, Toloki, sets down with a family in Middle America and uncovers the story of the runaway slaves who were their ancestors. Toloki, the professional mourner, has come to live in America. Lured to Athens,...

  • The Sculptors of Mapungubwe

    In the timeless kingdom of Mapungubwe, the royal sculptor had two sons, Chata and Rendani. As they grew, so grew their rivalry―and their extraordinary talents. But while Rendani became a master carver of the animals that run in the wild hills and l...

  • Black Diamond

    In this novel by celebrated South African writer Zakes Mda, Kristin Uys, a tough magistrate who lives alone with her cat in the Roodepoort district of Johannesburg, goes on a one-woman crusade to wipe out prostitution in her town. Her reasons are per...

  • Rachel's Blue

    Novelist Zakes Mda has made a name for himself as a key chronicler of the new, post-apartheid South Africa, casting a satirical eye on its claims of political unity, its rising black middle class, and other aspects of its complicated, multiracial soc...



  • The Zulus of New York

    The Great Farini would stride on to the stage and announce, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, and now for the highlight of the day, the ferocious Zulus.’The impresario Farini introduced Em-Pee and his troupe to his kind of show business, and now they must e...

  • Little Suns

    It is 1903. A lame and frail Malangana – 'Little Suns' – searches for his beloved Mthwakazi after many lonely years spent in Lesotho. Mthwakazi was the young woman he had fallen in love with twenty years earlier, before the assassination ...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Zakes Mda has published 11 books.

Zakes Mda does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Little Suns, was published in December 2019.

The first book by Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness, was published in August 2002.

Yes. Zakes Mda has 1 series.
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