Zakes Mda Quotes

He has neither touched a whale nor even Sharisha, except with his spirit - with his horn. He knows absolutely that this boat-based whale watching will be abused

Bhonco is different from the other Unbelievers in his family, for Unbelievers are reputed to be such somber people that they do not believe even in those things that can bring happiness to their lives. They spend most of their time moaning about past injustices and bleeding for the world that would have been had the folly of belief not seized the nation a century and a half ago and spun it around until it was in a woozy stupor that is felt to this day.”

For instance, when the Whale Caller wants to consummate relationship with his wife, images of whale interfere at the moment of ex- citement and he goes limp

Men, on the other hand, tend to cloud their heads with pettiness and vain pride. They sit all day and dispense wide-ranging philosophies on how things should be. With great authority in their voices, they come up with wise theories on how to put the world right. Then at night they demand to be given food, as if the food just walked into the house on its own. *When they believe all the children are asleep, they want to be pleasured. The next day they wake up and continue with their empty theories.

Camagu has no heart to tell her that Athens is a college town that is even smaller than the nearby town of Butterworth*.

The boats are now restored to their former glory as a reminder of a bygone era and bygone manual practices so that present and future generations can see how fishermen of the old endured the stormy seas in small open boats powered by their own muscles.

Hymns flow into one another in unplanned but pleasant segues.

It is strange how things don’t change in these shanty towns or squatter camps or informal settlements or whatever you choose to call them.

When they believe all the children are asleep, they want to be pleasured. The next day they wake up and continue with their empty theories.

In those days, they did not allow people of his colour onto any of the beaches of the city, so he could not carry out his ablutions there, as he does today.

They rig Sharisha with dynamite. [...] the emergency workers place more than five hundred kilograms of dynamite in all the strategie places, especially close to Sharisha's head.
Like a high priest in a ritual sacrifice a man stands over a contraption that is connected to the whale with a long red cable. With all due solemnity he triggers the explosives. Sharisha goes up in a gigantic baU of smoke and flame. [...] [The Whale Caller] is looking intently at the red, yellow and white flames as Sharisha rises in the sky. It is like Guy Fawkes fireworks

They do not like to be called squatters. How can we be squatters on our land, in our own country? Squatters are those who came from across the sea to steal our land

The Cult of the Unbelievers began with Twin-Twin. Bhonco Ximiya’s ancestor, in the days of the Prophetess Nongqawuse almost one hundred and fifty years ago. The revered Twin-Twin had elevated unbelieving to the heights of religion.”

It is not different, really, here in the city. Just like back in the village, we live our lives together as one. We know everything about everybody. We even know things that happen when we are not there; things that happen behind people’s closed doors deep in the middle of the night. We are the all-seeing eye of the village gossip. When in our orature the storyteller begins the story, ‘They say it once happened…’ we are the ‘they’. No individual owns any story. The community is the owner of the story, and it can tell it the way it deems it fit.

You have always been good at creating beautiful things with your hands.