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Chirundu
A burning house. Nsato the python. The symbols of destruction and of sexual power gone mad are two of the many and varied themes in Es'kia Mphahlele's second novel, originally published in 1979. Chimba Chirundu, ex-schoolmaster and now Minister of Transport and Public Works in a newly-independent African country, is brought to trial on a charge of bigamy laid by his wife Tirenje. Arrogant and power-hungry, wilful and morally ambiguous, Chirundu has to grapple with two sets of those of the traditional way of life in Africa, and those imposed by his country's erstwhile colonial rulers. A chorus of other voices illuminate this powerful story of corruption and Tirenje, Chirundu's country wife, whose moral strength derives from her rural roots; the worldly Monde, his town wife; Moyo, his idealistic nephew and the leader of a strike by transport workers; and the cynical Pitso and Letanka, jailed South African refugees. In often pungent language, and in an unmistakeably African idiom, Es'kia Mphahlele reveals the complexities and ambiguities of the post-colonial situation.
- GenresSouth Africa
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
Es'kia Mphahlele
29 books17 followersEs’kia Mphahlele, born Ezekiel Mphahlele, the name he used until 1977 (born Dec. 17, 1919, Marabastad, South Africa died Oct. 27, 2008, Lebowakgomo), novelist, essayist, short-story writer, and teacher whose autobiography, Down Second Avenue (1959), is a South African classic. It combines the story of a young man’s growth into adulthood with penetrating social criticism of the conditions forced upon black South Africans by apartheid.
Mphahlele grew up in Pretoria and attended St. Peter’s Secondary School in Rosettenville and Adams Teachers Training College in Natal. His early career as a teacher of English and Afrikaans was terminated by the government because of his strong opposition to the highly restrictive Bantu Education Act. In Pretoria he was fiction editor of Drum magazine (1955–57) and a graduate student at the University of South Africa (M.A., 1956). He went into voluntary exile in 1957, first arriving in Nigeria. Thereafter Mphahlele held a number of academic and cultural posts in Africa, Europe, and the United States.
He was director of the African program at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris. He was coeditor with Ulli Beier and Wole Soyinka of the influential literary periodical Black Orpheus (1960–64), published in Ibadan, Nigeria; founder and director of Chemchemi, a cultural centre in Nairobi for artists and writers (1963–65); and editor of the periodical Africa Today (1967). He received a doctorate from the University of Denver in 1968. In 1977 he returned to South Africa and became head of the department of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (1983–87).
Mphahlele’s critical writings include two books of essays, The African Image (1962) and Voices in the Whirlwind (1972), that address Negritude, the African personality, nationalism, the black African writer, and the literary image of Africa. He helped to found the first independent black publishing house in South Africa, coedited the anthology Modern African Stories (1964), and contributed to African Writing Today (1967). His short stories—collected in part in In Corner B (1967), The Unbroken Song (1981), and Renewal Time (1988)—were almost all set in Nigeria. His later works include the novels The Wanderers (1971) and Chirundu (1979) and a sequel to his autobiography, Afrika My Music (1984). Es’kia (2002) and Es’kia Continued (2005) are collections of essays and other writings.
Encyclopædia Britannica.
Mphahlele grew up in Pretoria and attended St. Peter’s Secondary School in Rosettenville and Adams Teachers Training College in Natal. His early career as a teacher of English and Afrikaans was terminated by the government because of his strong opposition to the highly restrictive Bantu Education Act. In Pretoria he was fiction editor of Drum magazine (1955–57) and a graduate student at the University of South Africa (M.A., 1956). He went into voluntary exile in 1957, first arriving in Nigeria. Thereafter Mphahlele held a number of academic and cultural posts in Africa, Europe, and the United States.
He was director of the African program at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris. He was coeditor with Ulli Beier and Wole Soyinka of the influential literary periodical Black Orpheus (1960–64), published in Ibadan, Nigeria; founder and director of Chemchemi, a cultural centre in Nairobi for artists and writers (1963–65); and editor of the periodical Africa Today (1967). He received a doctorate from the University of Denver in 1968. In 1977 he returned to South Africa and became head of the department of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (1983–87).
Mphahlele’s critical writings include two books of essays, The African Image (1962) and Voices in the Whirlwind (1972), that address Negritude, the African personality, nationalism, the black African writer, and the literary image of Africa. He helped to found the first independent black publishing house in South Africa, coedited the anthology Modern African Stories (1964), and contributed to African Writing Today (1967). His short stories—collected in part in In Corner B (1967), The Unbroken Song (1981), and Renewal Time (1988)—were almost all set in Nigeria. His later works include the novels The Wanderers (1971) and Chirundu (1979) and a sequel to his autobiography, Afrika My Music (1984). Es’kia (2002) and Es’kia Continued (2005) are collections of essays and other writings.
Encyclopædia Britannica.
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