Ways of Dying: A Novel (Paperback)

by Zakes Mda (Author) "'There are many ways of dying!'..." (more)
Key Phrases: spaza shop, hostel dwellers, shebeen queens, That Mountain Woman, Young Tigers, Professional Mourner (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Novelist and playwright Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying was a big hit in his native South Africa, where it was even adapted into a jazz opera. Toloki is a Professional Mourner, making a meager living by attending funerals in the violent city where he lives. In his ratty suit he adds "an aura of sorrow and dignity," often serving as peacemaker when fights break out. He encounters Noria, a childhood acquaintance whose son has just died, and the two renew their friendship, finding comfort in reminiscing over the harrowing events of their lives. There are shades of the absurd in Mda's darkly humorous descriptions of the crime, poverty, violence and ethnic unrest that plague the characters in this oddly affecting novel.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Writing from the heart of the new South Africa, Mda tells his country's stories through beautifully realized characters whose search for love and connection takes you up close to the black experience, past and present.Ways of Dying is set in the transitional years before the first democratic elections. Toloki has invented his job as professional mourner in a shantytown, and he finds plenty of work. The violence is horrific--by soldiers and police as well as migrant tribal groups and locals--but even after the worst massacre, where children are "necklaced" with burning tires, Toloki finds love, tenderness, and laughter with a woman from his childhood home and they build a shack together in the urban wasteland. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (August 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312420919
• ISBN-13: 978-0312420918
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #384,204 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #72 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > African > Central & South African

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful terrible book, March 5, 2003

By	John Anderson (Bar Harbor, ME USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

WAYS OF DYING is one of the most fascinating novels that I have read in years. The book is set in South Africa during a period that seems to span the end of the apartheid regime and focuses exclusively on the lives (and deaths) of poor South African Blacks in rural villages and urban shanty towns near what I suspect is Durban. Fans of Marquez will feel very much at home here in a world of "magical realism", yet while Mda may have been influenced by novels like 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE he has a voice that is uniquely his own, and one that I sense is profoundly rooted in Africa. Mda's "hero" is a self-declared Professional Mourner, who ekes out an existence at the edge of society. Some aspects of his life are almost grotesque in form, and the deaths that surround him are often truly horrifying, yet somehow I found this a profoundly optimistic and human book. In spite of the worst that the world can throw at him the Professional Mourner is able to transcend mere existence & by the end I was shamelessly rooting for him. I should add that I used this book in a course on the Turn of the Century, and one of my toughest-case students, whom I had failed to excite with anything else, came into my office today saying "I just LOVE Mda" You will too,

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars At last a new African writer! And he's good! Yay!, January 13, 2003

By	artemis "artemis" - See all my reviews

I am an avid reader of African literature, both fiction and non-fiction (especially memoirs). I am always searching for contemporary non-white writers (the white writers are good, but it is not unreasonable to want other perspectives), so I was happy to learn about Zakes Mda from a recent New York Times book review column, and I ordered his two books immediately.

'Ways of Dying' is not about post-apartheid South Africa, though the blurb suggests that. I estimate it to be set in the late 1980s, shortly before the end of the old regime was drawing near.

It's a short book, but it's well written, and paints a vivid picture of life in South Africa. And yes, the 'black perspective' is different, and very interesting, and most welcome.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of south africas black celebrated authors, August 22, 2005

By	Kinalma Bashman "Kinalma" (Port Elizabeth, South Africa) - See all my reviews

Recently i had the pleasure of reading material from one of South Africa's most celebrated black authors, Zakes Mda. An Oxford University Press published book titled "Ways of Dying", this is a South African fiction selection. Being a fiction, it is wtitten in a very creative manner that i could hardly associate with any of the books i had read before.

This is a story of love written with expectation of one's imagination to take over. The wording, grouping, style and context of this book make it so. It is mainly based on two characters and the way they live their lives. Toloki is a man consumed with the profession of mourning the dead whilst his love Noria has lost immensely through life, still has the ability to show Toloki how to live.

There are various different characters in this novel, which make it as interesting. Even with their differences, they jell well together making the story line easily readable and understandably creative enough to follow. The vast lines go from Toloki who grew up as the ugliest boy in the village and people taking no note of him to the same character turning into a man who is widely respected for his chosen profession in the city outskirts where it was the only place he found recognition. In the village where he grew up Toloki had a friend who had the identity he wanted. Her name was Noria. Toloki hated and loved her with the same heart. Noria was everyone's favorite in the villafe; she had her mother's beauty and brought all the boys and towns' man attention and had the most amazing laugh that made all the village people happy whenever they heard it. When she was sad, everyone was too.

The writing style used in this book is that which is very easy to follow. There are no bombastic (big) words used nor are there times where you could lose the story. Every word flows into a paragraph that combines to others that make this a brilliantly written story.

One of the other things that make this an interesting read is the humor infused.

This is a brilliant written book that everyone with a sense of adventure and imagination will enjoy.