The Heart of Redness: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Tears are very close to my eyes," says Bhonco, son of Ximiya..." (more)
Key Phrases: named ten rivers, amahobohobo weaverbirds, pink rondavel, Xoliswa Ximiya, John Dalton, The Man Who Named Ten Rivers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Mda's richly suggestive novel, a Westernized African, Camagu, becomes embroiled in a village dispute that has its roots in the 19th century. The war between the amaXhosa and the British in South Africa (known to Westerners as the Zulu Wars) was interrupted by a strange, messianic interlude in which the amaXhosa followed the self-destructive commands of the prophet Nongqawuse and were split between followers of Nongqawuse (Believers) and their opponents (Unbelievers). In the village of Qolorha-by-Sea in the late 20th century, the Believers still flourish. They put the onus for the distressing failure of Nongqawuse's visions on the Unbelievers' unbelief. The chief Believer is Zim; his rival, the chief Unbeliever, is Bhonco. The white store owner, Dalton, whose ancestor killed Zim and Bhonco's forefather, Xikixa, is on the Believers' side in the village's current controversy over whether or not to allow a casino in the village. The Believers oppose the changes they foresee coming to the village's traditions. The Unbelievers want economic development. Camagu originally comes to Qolorha looking for a woman whose memory haunts him. He ends up being associated with the cold, beautiful Xoliswa Ximiya, Bhonco's daughter, whose scorn for tradition eventually drives her from the village. Secretly, however, Camagu lusts for Qukezwa, the squat but sexy daughter of Zim. Mda's sympathies are with the Believers, but his eminent fairness forbids mere didacticism, and his joy in the back and forth of village politics beautifully communicates itself to the reader through poetic language enlivened by humor and irony.
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. In Heart of Redness, protagonist Camagu (like the author) had left South Africa during the apartheid years, but now he's back. Camagu has trouble finding his place in the new system until he lands in a coastal village in the eastern Cape, where a "black empowerment" company wants to develop a tourist heaven with casinos and theme parks. The villagers are split between those who welcome "progress" and those who fear it. With the present conflict, Mda weaves in the infamous history of this place, where the savage white conquerors came with "civilization" and a Xhosa prophetess told the people to resist by destroying their cattle and crops. Then, as now, the community was split, and the questions remain. The constant weaving together of past and present slows the narrative, but Mda does a great job of subverting the heart-of-darkness stereotypes, and he does it without romanticizing the "primitive." Today's villagers want electricity, running water, literacy. But they also want to conserve their Xhosa culture and the natural beauty of their place, not as tourist fodder, but as a dynamic contemporary community. Can Camagu help find a way? The parallels with the Native American experience will grab readers, as will the personal search for home. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (August 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374528349
• ISBN-13: 978-0374528348
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,531,264 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece by a Master Storyteller, October 25, 2002

By	William Gutowski (Ames, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in years. Mda skillfullly evokes the tensions in contemporary South Africa for blacks caught between the tug of Western, technological culture and their identity in long-standing traditions. The story is given added substance by Mda's recounting the history of similar tensions from the nineteenth century, thus creating deep emotions that propel the characters. The story mixes family feuds, spats between the sexes, and sober deliberations about community versus individual choices, all told with a level of humor that underscores rather than undermines the importance of these issues for South Africa today.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A REVIEW OF HEART OF REDNESS: THE EVOLVING IDENTITY, December 8, 2006

By	Kitmacculate (sacramento, ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Heart of Redness: A Novel (Paperback)

The novel Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda, tells a tale of rural integration and religious conflict of a village in post colonial South Africa. The novel reveals the metamorphosis of South Africans through an economic, social, and cultural lens in the 1990s. Africa is no long the primitive continent solely known for its vast concoction of indigenous cultures. Instead, it is an emerging economy with its people adjusting to modernity and the how the lives of many Africans coexists with the remaining colonial influences. This struggle for change and progress, versus preservation of the land and traditions, becomes the pinnacle feud between the Believers and Unbelievers. By folding different generations of stories with each character of the book, Heart of Redness becomes alive with vivacity.
The story begins by introducing the Middle Generation that was lost to the colonial conflicts. Because of this great disturbance in African culture and history, the feud between the Believers and the Unbelievers drove the lives of many African decedents apart for decades. Camagu, the main character of the book, returns to South Africa for first time after being exiled to the United States for 30 years, finds himself to be a stranger in a land that he once called home. Camagu's character presented the readers an unbiased and western perspective as if the reader can experienced this story first handed.
After being educated in the west and earned a repertoire of outstanding professions, Camagu's knowledge and experience were almost nonfunctional in South Africa. For most jobs that he went looking for, he was overqualified. However, because he was not in the "elite" circle of the Aristocrats of the Revolution, he could not get into the jobs that would really allow him to make a difference. Discouraged by the rejection job after job, the discontent Camagu was ready to pack up his suit case and leave Africa once again. However, after an incidental meeting with the strange but beautiful NoRussia, Camagu begin his journey to Qolorha-by-the-sea, where he would hope that he can reunite with her. After his arrival, he learns the rich history of the momentous feud between the Believers and the Unbelievers, and the prophetess Nogqawuse "who deceived the amaXhosa nation" into famine and strife (p35). Subsequently, he finds himself intertwined with the grudge and livelihood of those who resides there.
The confrontation between the Believers and Unbelievers began when the prophetess Nogqawuse told the people of amaXhosa to slay all of their cattle for a new beautiful life awaits them. Although cattle slaying seem like a self-destructive idea, (which it consequently proved to be so regardless), the reasoning behind such request was logical for a lot of native Africans. When the Europeans brought over their cows that were infected with lungsickness, it plagued the African cows and caused devastating effects. Those who obeyed the prophecy and slain their cows became the Believers, and those who did not, became the Unbelievers. And because of this prophecy, the feud begins.
This prophecy drove ideologies, families, and friends apart. Sisters were against brothers, and mothers were against fathers. The disagreement branch out to other issues beyond the prophecy. The two twin brothers, Twin and Twin-Twin, was presented by the author to show how this prophecy can drive people apart regardless of how close they once were. When Twin became a Believer and Twin-Twin became an Unbeliever, the brothers broke apart. They each led their own mission in life to seek out their own destinies and fight against the others' ideologies.
Twin-twin was the original Unbeliever. He refused to slaughter his cattle when Nogqawuse gave the orders that the amaXhosa should destroy all their herds. He said the prophetess was a liar who had been sought by white people to destroy the black race. Today the village is full of Twin-Twin's progeny, because not many of his children died when famine attacked the land after Nogqawuse's prophecies failed (P62).

The Unbelievers thought the prophecy to be an absolute fraud. Because of this, unbelieving became a form of religion almost, as believing was. The main ideology behind the Unbelievers was that progress is necessary for prosperity to occur. The only way to do so was through the help of foreign investment and the building of a casino where it will provide jobs for the people. That way, there is a steady flow of income. In a conversation between Camagu and the leader of the Unbelievers, Bhonco, he discusses the Unbeliever's side with Camagu in regards to why building a Casino is beneficial for the people of Qolorha. "`We want developers to come and build the gambling city that will bring money to this community. That will bring modernity to our lives, and will rid us of our redness'" (p92). The redness discussed here, depicts the struggle and conflict of the African people that had endured over the centuries of colonial conquests, and the hardship that came with it.
"The Unbelievers are moving forward with the times. That is why they support the casino and the water-sports paradise that the developers want to build. The Unbelievers stand for civilization" (p71). A progressive and utilitarian view of the optimistic future is depicted here by the Unbelievers. Although the idea behind casino building and its economic benefits for the people may seem like a great idea, however, "it may not be the boon the Unbelievers think it will be" (p103). With the construction of casino building, "few men from the village, if any, will get the Jobs. Construction companies come with their own workers who have the necessary experience... Of course, a small number of jobs is better than no jobs at all. But if they are at the expense of the freedom to enjoy the sea and its bountiful harvests and the wood and the birds and the monkeys... then those few jobs are not really worth it" (p103). This rebuttal drives home the Believer's values and moral ethics to be more agreeable and sympathetic to accept. The author first seems to allow the readers to side with the Unbeliever's arguments. Ideally, this progress only seems logical and realistic for the future of Qolorha. Nevertheless, throughout different occasions in the novel, Mda reminds us time after time, that the social and moral consequences presented by the Believers in regards to the building of the casino, may not be as advantageous as it seems.
For the Believers, the failed prophecy is hindered on the shoulders of the Unbelievers as they were the once who didn't slay their cattle, causing the prophecy to fail. However, if the casino was to be built in Qolorha, Africans will have to adapt to the lifestyle of private property and ownership. This conflicts with the Africans who once knew the earth to be a collective bountiful garden of food. With the building of the casino, the sense of communal collectivity will be gone, and Africans would be forced to live with a foreign system of rules.
The rift between the Believers and Unbelievers is so deep, that even in communal events, if one group is attending, one can be sure that the other will not be there.
No one is ever invited to a village feast. When people hear there is a feast at someone's homestead, they go there to enjoy themselves... Everyone is welcome at a village feast. Indeed, it is considered sacrilege to stay away from your fellow man's feast. But none of the believers have come. The war of the Believers and Unbelievers has gone to that extent. They don't attend each other's feasts. They do attend each other's funerals... to make sure that the deceased is really dead. One less person to be irritated about. (p62)

This kind of conflict has deeply impacted the way many South Africans live. Often at times, the differences in religious beliefs can cause civil unrest and instability amongst communities. In this case, one can witness the degree of conflict that creates potential social problems, and prevent civil unity.
Another character in the novel that symbolically reciprocates the changing lifestyle of the South Africa is the store shop owner John Dalton. As a white decent and a Believer, he understood that in order to foster African culture in the globalize world of evolving demands, he must advocate environmental conservation in order to preserve the uniqueness of the amaXhosa nation.
However, one must not be fooled by this façade of his strong sense of conservationism and preservation of traditions (he did went to circumcision school). Dalton incorporates capitalistic marketing schemes into the cooperative cultural village that later served as a tourist attraction. These cooperative villages, resembles the very core of what African tradition is perceived to be by foreigners. For the Believers, the cooperative village turns tourist attraction to the Africans daily traditions, into a profit making tourist destination. As presented here, this was the Believer's way of preserving the beauty of Qolorha-by-the-sea.
Camagu learns that NoManage and NoVangelis are two formidable women who earn their living from what John Dalton calls cultural tourism. Their work is to display amasikothe customs and cultural practices of the amaXhosato the white people who are brought to their hut in dalton's four-wheel-drive bakkie, after he has taken them on various trails to Nongqawuse's Valley, the great lagoon, the shipwrecks, the rivers, and the gorges, and the ancient midens and cairns... All these shenanigans are performed by these women in their full isiXhosa traditional costume of the amahomba, which is cumbersome work when people want to look smart and beautiful... And the tourists pay good money for all this foolery. (p 96)

Although the cooperative village exaggerates the... Read more ›

7 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars South African Life among the Natives, October 24, 2003

By	lvkleydorff (CT. USA) - See all my reviews

The story intermingles two time frames: Both share the same family and Xhosa location on the shores of the Indian Ocean. One part tells the story of the British war against the native tribe in the mid-19th century - the war now known as the Zulu war. The other part deals with the present time.

Camugu comes from Johannesburg and tries to fit into the somewhat primitive village of Oorloha. He lands in the middle of the fight that has been going on for 150 years. In those days, the teenage prophetess Nongqawuse Told the tribe that all cattle had be killed and the harvest destroyed. Thus the tribe was split between Believers and Unbelievers, each group blaming the other for whatever went wrong. And so the verbal fighting goes back and forth.

Xhosa used to be a real tribe, but nowadays only the language survives as part of the Bantu languages. That accounts for the click sounds that are mentioned. The Zulu war did take place, of course, and the prophesy also happened. The story is interwoven with the local history.

The narrative has won prizes and has been called "brilliant' and loaded with genuine mythic power. Unfortunately, I can't see it that way. The story drags on and on without there being much of a concrete action. The two time periods are so intermingled as to confuse the reader who constantly has to check the names to place it correctly. Untranslated local words and expressions can be used to good effect, but here they are overdone. And the story itself is not new, not exciting, and utterly predictable.