He worked as a bank clerk, a teacher and in marketing before the publication of We Shall Sing for the Fatherland and O Zakes Mda is the pen name of Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda, a novelist, poet and playwright.Īlthough he spent his early childhood in Soweto (where he knew political figures such as Walter and Albertina Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela) he had to finish his education in Lesotho where his father went into exile since 1963. His first play, We Shall Sing for the Fatherland, won the first Amstel Playwright of the Year Award in 1978, a feat he repeated the following year. Consequently Mda preferred to write his first plays in English. This change of setting also meant a change of language for Mda: from isiXhosa to Sesotho. Although he spent his early childhood in Soweto (where he knew political figures such as Walter and Albertina Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela) he had to finish his education in Lesotho where his father went into exile since 1963. This noted, this study will make a significant contribution to the rehabilitation of African traditions as it unravels the foundations and gatekeepers of modernity at the expense of African tradition.Zakes Mda is the pen name of Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda, a novelist, poet and playwright. The paper concludes that to reesseentialise African traditions, the remnants of colonialism should be successfully uprooted. The findings from the study divulge the clash between African tradition and modernity has resulted in the erosion of many African traditional systems notwithstanding the dethronement of the colonial administration that empowered modernity at the expense of African traditional systems. This noted, the paper has utilised a qualitative research method and a textual analysis to critically scrutinise the impacts of the clash between tradition and modernity through the lens of the literary text, Heart of Redness (2000) by Zakes Mda.

Most believers of African tradition are very conventional, counterattacking the effects of modernity signalled by the colonial period, including the arrival of Christianity and Western teachings.

In Africa, modernity has not only influenced personal characteristics but also social, cultural, religious and the operation of establishments. Therefore, the paper’s key objective is to delineate the degree of social impairment in the present-day Africa engendered by the interface between tradition and modernity. The utmost global portent that distresses human social life is the impact of modernity. Modernity has reached Africa and, thus, the African tradition cannot remain intact. Although most African writers deal with it, relatively few have attempted to depict how tradition and modernity may both benefit African societies. The interface between African tradition and modernity is one of the concerns of spirited debates in the post-colonial period.

The heart of redness by zakes mda