![]() At one of these funerals, Toloki reconnects with Noria, an old childhood acquaintance. As a mourner, Toloki wanders the South African countryside, looking for work at what seems like an endless number of black funerals. He is a professional mourner, working in small black communities and shantytowns like the one where he was raised. Toloki, who has faced an extreme amount of hardship throughout the decades of Apartheid and in the years afterward, has found a way to channel his grief into a professional career, one that pays his bills if he lives frugally. The book symbolizes the pain and struggle of post-Apartheid South Africa, speaking to the complexity of life during this period when intra-Black violence was not reported for fear of retaliation from white police and leaders looking for any excuse to reinstate old systems of power. The book is a love story, following Toloki, a professional mourner, and his new girlfriend Noria, whom he meets at her son, Vutha's funeral. ![]() Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda is a work of magical realism set in an unnamed town five years after the first elections post-Apartheid in South Africa. ![]()
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May 2023
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