Nongqawuse pronunciation

the report said nothing of the prophecy,
the vision of the millions
who were to rise from the sea.

not child but orphan—
yes orphan, also niece of a leader,
not clear if a victim
but definitely a traitor.

Nongqawuse enters the archive
under the weight of shame,
soaked, she shuffles in with
endless rivulets of blood
embedded in her small palms

the written record makes no mention of
her mother, her father, the deaths
she witnessed at the shock
of the breechloader, bullet residue heavy
in the air like rain clouds.

in the hall of history,
she is made juvenile,
invalid, filed between
shelves of wayward women,
witch, illiterate, inconsiderate.

in autumn, jacarandas are
singed to falling petals,
dried purple in red soil
Nongqawuse’s name still cursed

the ridicule follows her to the grave
open mouths remain agape
invisible chains, no redemption
no resurrection, no grains remain.

Isabel Balseiro

2004

This book is the first critical study of its subject, from colonial and pre-colonial times to the present. Christopher Heywood discusses selected poems, plays, and prose works in five literary traditions: Khoisan, Nguni-Sotho, Afrikaans, English, and Indian. The discussion includes over 100 authors and selected works, including poets from Mqhayi, Marais, and Campbell to Butler, Serote, and Krog, theatre writers from Boniface and Black to Fugard and Mda, and fiction writers from Schreiner and Plaatje to Bessie Head and the Nobel prizewinners Gordimer and Coetzee. The literature is explored in the setting of crises leading to the formation of modern South Africa, notably the rise and fall of Emperor Shaka's Zulu kingdom, the Colenso crisis, industrialisation, the colonial and post-colonial wars of 1899, 1914, and 1939, and the dissolution of apartheid society. In Heywood's

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