The Madonna of Excelsior by Zakes Mda audiobook

The Madonna of Excelsior

By Zakes Mda
Read by Robin Miles

Recorded Books, Inc.
9.70 Hours 1
Format : Digital Download (In Stock)
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    ISBN: 9781461811459

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In 1971, nineteen citizens of Excelsior, a farming community in South Africa's rural Free States, were charged with breaking apartheid's Immorality Act, which forbade sexual relations between blacks and whites on the pretext of avoiding miscegenation. The women were jailed as they awaited trial and their white counterparts were released on bail. In the end, the state withdrew the charges, but the accused women's lives, already complicated, became harder than ever. Mda tells the story of a family at the heart of the scandal, revealing a country in which apartheid, even as it sought to keep the races apart, concealed interracial liaisons of every kind. Niki, the fallen Madonna, transgresses boundaries for the sake of love; her choices have profound repercussions in the lives of her black son, Viliki, and her mixed-race daughter, Popi, who come of age in the years after the end of apartheid, when freedom allows them - indeed compels them - to figure out their racial identities for themselves. As the story advances to the present, the mixed society of Excelsior comes to suggest South Africa today, a society far more complex - and more dramatic - than conventional notions of black and white will allow.

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Summary

Summary

In 1971, nineteen citizens of Excelsior, a farming community in South Africa's rural Free States, were charged with breaking apartheid's Immorality Act, which forbade sexual relations between blacks and whites on the pretext of avoiding miscegenation. The women were jailed as they awaited trial and their white counterparts were released on bail. In the end, the state withdrew the charges, but the accused women's lives, already complicated, became harder than ever. Mda tells the story of a family at the heart of the scandal, revealing a country in which apartheid, even as it sought to keep the races apart, concealed interracial liaisons of every kind. Niki, the fallen Madonna, transgresses boundaries for the sake of love; her choices have profound repercussions in the lives of her black son, Viliki, and her mixed-race daughter, Popi, who come of age in the years after the end of apartheid, when freedom allows them - indeed compels them - to figure out their racial identities for themselves. As the story advances to the present, the mixed society of Excelsior comes to suggest South Africa today, a society far more complex - and more dramatic - than conventional notions of black and white will allow.

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Reviews

Author

Author Bio: Zakes Mda

Author Bio: Zakes Mda

Zakes Mda has received every major South African prize for his work. Born in 1948, he has been a visiting professor at Yale and the University of Vermont. He is now a dramaturg at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, and a Professor in the Creative Writing Department at Ohio University.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : Digital Download, CD
Category: Fiction/Literary
Runtime: 9.70
Audience: Adult
Language: English