The monstrous mental asylum: Lewis Nkosi writing home
13 Feb 2021
Songs of revolt: The world-renowned literary critic and broadcaster Lewis Nkosi was born in Durban in 1936. (Victor Dlamini)
Ten years after his death in Johannesburg, Lewis Nkosi’s work allows us to critique the country’s worsening fault lines, in the hope of animating all South Africans towards strengthening the fight against endemic historical injustices and poor service delivery.
Anchored on issues of colonialism, race, class, land, power, sexuality and the beastification of the black body, his 1986 debut novel
Mating Birds is an enterprising sea map of the mind, the craft of writing, and his running commentary on how best black writers could produce a radical, imaginative and persistent response to the apartheid catastrophe.