Bird-Monk Seding - Softcover

Rampolokeng, Lesego

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0994710402 ISBN 13: 9780994710406

Publisher: Deep South, 2017

Synopsis

"This place is called SEDING, short for Leseding, place of light. Quite ironic given the darkness throbbing at its core and spilling out bubbling in the blackest rage when least expected. Surrounded by farmland in all directions, it is a settlement of about 700 households crammed in tiny structures. There are an average 7 souls per hovel. It used to be made up of ramshackle corrugated iron shacks that seemed tossed down regardless of aesthetics. Then the new administration's housing program kicked in. Man in the bush in quest of Bosman's ghost. Finding AWB rabidity. Tranquillity so deep it kills. Hate-hounds. Beneath the surface quiet, such racist rotten-heartedness. & children dying. Starvation abounds. Raw sewage in the water supply. Crap in the taps. Skin matters. Ancient white beards sexing black teens for tins, food exchange. The soul's impoverishment. The starved get their humanity halved. And weekends of sex-tourism. Alcoholic stares everywhere. Deep fear too." ***Lesego Rampolokeng is a poet and performance maestro, and the author of 12 books, including two plays and three novels. He has collaborated with visual artists, playwrights, film-makers, theatre and opera producers, poets and musicians. His no-holds-barred style, radical political-aesthetic perspective and instantly recognizable voice have brought him a unique place in South African literature. His third novel, Bird-Monk Seding, is a stark picture of life in a rural township two decades into South Africa's democracy. Listening and observing in the streets and taverns-narrator Bavino Sekete, often feeling desperate himself-is thrown back to his own violent childhood in Soweto. To get through, he turns to his pantheon of jazz innovators and radical writers. [Subject: Fiction, South African Literature, African Studies]

About this title

About the Author:

Lesego Rampolokeng, born in Soweto, South Africa, is the poet of the lost generation of apartheid. Believing that the power of the spoken word can turn into music in itself, he merged many different influences in the beginning of the '90s and thus became one of the most uncompromising artists in the newly blossoming artistical scene of South Africa during that decade. He summarizes his artistical goals as follows: 'Whether that pleases the kings and princes of this earth is absolutely of no importance to me'.

Review:

Rampolokeng’s third novel is a stark portrait of a Groot Marico township two decades into South Africa’s democracy. Innovative and violently sensory, one judge noted that he “brandishes his scatting be-bop voice like a fearsome weapon” as he renders the resilience of people marked by apartheid. - Sunday Times Barry Ronge Prize Citation

Lesego Rampolokeng’s latest novel, Bird-Monk Seding, if one can call it a novel, is a rampaging, fast-talking, spontaneous and often opaque window into a dark, dangerous world; a world filled with injustice, suffering and copious amounts of bodily fluids. To try to describe this book in traditional terms is almost futile, given that Rampolokeng cares little for established literary forms. - Russell Grant, Mail & Guardian, South Africa

About this edition

• Publisher: Deep South
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0994710402
• ISBN 13: 9780994710406
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192