Xhosa Oral Poetry
Title | Xhosa Oral Poetry PDF eBook |
Author | Jeff Opland |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 328 |
Release | 1983-12-30 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9780521241137 |
This book, first published in 1983, was the first detailed study of the Xhosa oral poetry tradition.
Xhosa Poets and Poetry
Title | Xhosa Poets and Poetry PDF eBook |
Author | Jeff Opland |
Publisher | New Africa Books |
Pages | 388 |
Release | 1998 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 9780864864208 |
Xhosa oral poetry has defied the threats to its integrity over two centuries, to take its place in a free South Africa. This volume establishes the background to this poetic re-emergence, preserving and transmitting the voice of the Xhosa poet.
Broken River Tent
Title | Broken River Tent PDF eBook |
Author | Mputhumi Ntabeni |
Publisher | Blackbird Books |
Pages | 309 |
Release | 2018 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 1928337740 |
The Broken River Tent is a novel that marries imagination with history. It is about the life and times of Maqoma, the Xhosa chief who was at the forefront of fighting British colonialism in the Eastern Cape during the nineteenth century. The story is told through the eyes of a young South African, Phila, who suffers from what he calls triple 'N' condition--neurasthenia, narcolepsy and cultural ne plus ultra. This makes him feel far removed from events happening around him but gives him access to the analeptic memory of his people. After being under immense mental pressure, he crosses the mental divide between the living and the dead and is visited by Maqoma. They engage in different conversations about cultural history, literature, religion, the past and contemporary South African life.
The Wrath of the Ancestors
Title | The Wrath of the Ancestors PDF eBook |
Author | A. C. Jordan |
Publisher | Jonathan Ball Publishers |
Pages | 285 |
Release | 2004 |
Genre | South African fiction (English) |
ISBN | 9780868522289 |
A Xhosa prince reluctantly leaves the University College of Fort Hate and goes back to the land of his ancestors to take his place as king of the Mpondomise. The clash of his modem ideas and the traditional beliefs of his people mirrors the dash of the western way of life with African custom and tradition -- church-people versus traditionalists, school people versus 'red-ochre people', boarding school activities versus the inkundla or assembly at the royal place. The conclusion, that disaster can be averted only by the willingness of opposing forces to work together for mutual comprehension of the legitimate claims of tradition and modernity, gives a foretaste of the spirit that governed modern South Africa's political transformation. Ingqumbo Yeminyanya -- The Wrath of the Ancestors -- is a classic of Xhosa literature. A C Jordan has a keen eye for detail, a delightful sense of humour and a dramatic style. Literal translations of Xhosa images, idioms and proverbs transport readers to the Tsolo district and conjure up the memorable speeches of the Mpondomise counsellors.
Of Land, Bones, and Money
Title | Of Land, Bones, and Money PDF eBook |
Author | Emily McGiffin |
Publisher | University of Virginia Press |
Pages | 260 |
Release | 2019-07-18 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 0813942772 |
The South African literature of iimbongi, the oral poets of the amaXhosa people, has long shaped understandings of landscape and history and offered a forum for grappling with change. Of Land, Bones, and Money examines the shifting role of these poets in South African society and the ways in which they have helped inform responses to segregation, apartheid, the injustices of extractive capitalism, and contemporary politics in South Africa. Emily McGiffin first discusses the history of the amaXhosa people and the environment of their homelands before moving on to the arrival of the British, who began a relentless campaign annexing land and resources in the region. Drawing on scholarship in the fields of human geography, political ecology, and postcolonial ecocriticism, she considers isiXhosa poetry in translation within its cultural, historical, and environmental contexts, investigating how these poems struggle with the arrival and expansion of the exploitation of natural resources in South Africa and the entrenchment of profoundly racist politics that the process entailed. In contemporary South Africa, iimbongi remain a respected source of knowledge and cultural identity. Their ongoing practice of producing complex, spiritually rich literature continues to have a profound social effect, contributing directly to the healing and well-being of their audiences, to political transformation, and to environmental justice.
A Living Man from Africa
Title | A Living Man from Africa PDF eBook |
Author | Roger S. Levine |
Publisher | Yale University Press |
Pages | 477 |
Release | 2010-12-21 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0300168594 |
Born into a Xhosa royal family around 1792 in South Africa, Jan Tzatzoe was destined to live in an era of profound change—one that witnessed the arrival and entrenchment of European colonialism. As a missionary, chief, and cultural intermediary on the eastern Cape frontier and in Cape Town and a traveler in Great Britain, Tzatzoe helped foster the merging of African and European worlds into a new South African reality. Yet, by the 1860s, despite his determined resistance, he was an oppressed subject of harsh British colonial rule. In this innovative, richly researched, and splendidly written biography, Roger S. Levine reclaims Tzatzoe's lost story and analyzes his contributions to, and experiences with, the turbulent colonial world to argue for the crucial role of Africans as agents of cultural and intellectual change.
The Xhosa Ntsomi
Title | The Xhosa Ntsomi PDF eBook |
Author | Harold Scheub |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 474 |
Release | 1975 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN |
"The Xhosa ntsomi (sing. intsomi; pl. iintsomi) is a performing art which has, as its dynamic mainspring, a core-cliché (a song, chant, or saying) which is, during a performance, developed, expanded, detailed, and dramatized before an audience which is itself composed of performers, everyone in a Xhosa society being a potential performer."--Introduction.