'There are many suns,' he said. 'Each day has
its own. Some are small, some are big. I’m named after the small ones.'
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 of Hamilton
Hope ripped the two of them apart.
Intertwined
with Malangana's story, is the account of Hope – a colonial magistrate who, in
the late nineteenth century, was undermining the local kingdoms of the eastern
Cape in order to bring them under the control of the British. It was he who
wanted to coerce Malangana’s king and his people, the amaMpondomise, into joining his battle – a scheme Malangana’s
conscience could not allow.
Zakes Mda's
fine new novel Little Suns weaves
the true events surrounding the death of Magistrate Hope into a touching story
of love and perseverance that can transcend exile and strife.
* Courtesy of Umuzi (Publishers)
No comments:
Post a Comment