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OverviewDavid Livingstone Phakamile Yali-Manisi (1926–99) was a Thembu imbongi, the most powerful exponent of the art of praise poetry in the Xhosa language, in the second half of the twentieth century. His literary career, however, was blighted by circumstances beyond his control, and he died in total obscurity. Manisi was obliged to seek his audiences throughout the lifetime of South Africa’s reviled policy of apartheid, and the poet’s reputation, initially full of promise, waned as a consequence. He was a lifelong supporter of Nelson Mandela and the author of the earliest poem in praise of Mandela (1954), but he was never able to fulfil his ambition of performing a poem in honour of Mandela in a liberated South Africa. Manisi exhibited a marked penchant for extending the panegyric mode of the imbongi into explicit narrative; he also displayed an astonishing capacity to compose poetry in the act of performance. This volume presents eight of his narrative poems in isiXhosa and in English translation. Four of them are drawn from his earliest published books, together with the complete text of his epic poem on the War of Mlanjeni, published in 1983; also included are three remarkable spontaneous poems produced with little forethought. The poems address events in the first eighty years of the nineteenth century, and feature blunt assessments of figures such as Ntsikana, Ngqika, Nonesi, Sandile, Sir Harry Smith, Nongqawuse and Sir George Grey. David Yali-Manisi ardently anticipated the restoration of black control under those imprisoned on Robben Island, fighters for liberty quite as heroic as the crane-feathered warriors of the nineteenth century. His poetry, both written and performed, plumbed the past to inspire resistance to present injustices. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Jeff Opland , Pamela Maseko , Jeff Opland , Pamela MasekoPublisher: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Imprint: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Volume: 2 Dimensions: Width: 15.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.00cm Weight: 0.454kg ISBN: 9781869142834ISBN 10: 1869142837 Pages: 308 Publication Date: 23 November 2015 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationJeff Opland recently retired after a career teaching at universities in South Africa, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. He is the author of numerous studies of Anglo-Saxon and Xhosa literature, and is currently editing and translating a series of texts drawn from his collection of Xhosa literature. strong>Pamela Maseko holds a PhD in Socio-linguistics. She taught at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and is currently teaching Sociolinguistics and Applied Language Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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