Zakes Mda on his latest novel, set in Lesotho’s musical gang wars

Zakes Mda is one of South Africa’s best-loved novelists – though he is also a celebrated playwright, children’s book author and an increasingly visible painter.

His latest novel, Wayfarers’ Hymns, is at once full of drama and mirth, set in Lesotho and playing out in the bloody world of famo musicians. At a launch of the book at the University of Pretoria, Dr Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang interviewed Mda about it. This is an edited transcription of that interview.

Nokuthula Mazibuko-Msimang I was intrigued that yes, you talk about the culture of Basotho and the instruments of Basotho, but not in the way that you’ve done before, as a kind of healing salve to our colonial oppression and apartheid and so on. This is a different ballgame. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you. And about the process of writing this book about musical gangsters, really.

Zakes Mda This book