The Madonna of Excelsior: A Novel

Zakes Mda

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, May 15, 2007 - Fiction - 272 pages

A new novel by a towering presence in contemporary South African literature

In 1971, nineteen citizens of Excelsior in South Africa's white-ruled Free State were charged with breaking apartheid's Immorality Act, which forbade sex between blacks and whites. Taking this case as raw material for his alchemic imagination, Zakes Mda tells the story of a family at the heart of the scandal -and of a country in which apartheid concealed interracial liaisons of every kind.

Niki, the fallen madonna, transgresses boundaries for the sake of love; her choices have repercussions in the lives of her black son and mixed-race daughter, who come of age in post-apartheid South Africa, where freedom prompts them to reexamine their country's troubled history at first hand.

By turns earthy, witty, and tragic, The Madonna of Excelsior is a brilliant depiction of life in South Africa and of the dramatic changes between the 1970s and the present.

Contents

• 1 WOMEN DONKEYS AND SUNFLOWERS: 3
• 2 THE GARDEN PARTY: 7
• 3 ALL THESE MADONNAS: 12
• 4 IN THE VERY BEGINNING THERE WERE THREE NAÏVE GIRLS: 14
• 5 THE WEDDING: 21
• 6 SHE IS HOLDING THE SUN: 25
• 7 THE PAN: 27
• 8 THE BIG SKY IS BEREFT OF STARS: 37
• 9 THE CHERRY FESTIVAL: 42
• 10 A BARN FULL OF MOANS: 50
• 11 BIG EYES IN THE SKY: 56
• 12 A TRULY COLOURED BABY: 62
• 13 GLORY: 68
• 14 A SUNBURNT CHRIST: 78
• 15 AN OUTBREAK OF MISCEGENATION: 87
• 16 THE KAMIKAZE OF THE GEESE: 94
• 17 THE BLUE MADONNA: 104
• 18 RITES OF PASSAGE TJAART GOES SOLDIERING: 110
• 19 RITES OF PASSAGE VILIKI GOES SOLDIERING: 119
• 20 BLESSINGS: 126
• 21 POSKAARTPOSTCARD 1: 133
• 22 SWEET STALACTITES: 145
• 23 DAYMARE: 156
• 24 EVERYBODY IS A HERO AT ONE TIME AND A VILLAIN AT ANOTHER TIME: 168
• 25 THE WAR OF THE UNSHAVEN LEGS: 178
• 26 THE SELLER OF SONGS: 188
• 27 SERENITY RESTS ON HER LIKE A HEAVY LOG: 195
• 28 IMMERSIONS: 202
• 29 AN OLD LOVE AFFAIR: 210
• 30 POSKAARTPOSTCARD 2: 217
• 31 SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID: 226
• 32 PROFOUND NOSTALGIA: 230
• 33 BETRAYAL BY THE ELDERS: 236
• 34 A SEASON OF WHISPERS: 247
• 35 FROM THE SINS OF OUR MOTHERS: 255
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: 260

About the author

Zakes Mda, a novelist and playwright, 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 writer-in-residence at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. His previous novel The Heart of Redness was published by FSG in 2002.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Madonna of Excelsior: A Novel
• Author: Zakes Mda
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007
• ISBN: 0374708231, 9780374708238
• Length: 272 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Historical / 20th Century / General; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / World Literature / Africa / Southern Africa