Tribute: Mazisi Kunene 1930-2006.

Chapman, Michael

The editors wish to express sadness at the passing on Friday, 11 August, of Mazisi Kunene. He was a great poet in both isiZulu and English, in his home country South Africa, his continent Africa, and his places of dwelling in the world during his years of politically enforced exile.

Mazisi Kunene--born in KwaZulu-Natal--was educated at the former University of Natal in Durban. Having left South Africa in 1959 he was active in anti-apartheid politics and was later Professor of African Literature and Languages at the University of California, Los Angeles, until 1993 when he returned to Durban to assume the position as a professor of isiZulu Studies. For his creative and critical achievements he was awarded a D.Litt by the University of Natal.

Kunene's poetry is a unique blend of Zulu tradition and human modernity. His collections include (in his own English translation) Zulu Poems (1970), Emperor Shaka the Great (1979), Anthem of the Decades (1981) and The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain (1982).

Only a fraction of his voluminous writings in isiZulu has so far been published. Collections include Isibusiso sikamhawu (1994), Indida yamancasakazi (1995) and Umzwilili wama-Africa (1996).

 Stages of Existence

 I watched the rainbow
 Advancing with the faces of old women
 Who raised their heavy eyes
 Like the shadows of magical figures.
 I bent the rainbow-rope from the horizon
 So that I might tie the earth
 So that whatever is passed of the past
 May give birth.
 Beyond the red boundaries
 Is the new lightning of children
 Who will grow above
 The shadows of old women.
 When they have conquered them
 They may rest and create new forms
 That inspire new life
 Making knots for eternity
 From which new generations will arise ...

 (The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain, 1980)

Hamba kahle Mazisi