Literature
Ignatius T. Mabasa
Translated from Shona by J. Tsitsi Mutiti
The Mad
The Mad is set in the second decade of Zimbabwe’s independence, when there was growing frustration with the failure to improve the lives of ordinary people. War veteran, Hamundigone, having been dismissed as a teacher, travels from rural Mashonaland towards Harare to attempt to sort out his pension and to visit his family members. He finds a city filled with those struggling to survive poverty and disease, and those who have abandoned traditional values and the aims of the Liberation War.
Is he mad, or is the world around him mad?
The novel was featured in The Times Literary Supplement as “one of the most significant books to have come out of Africa.”
Ignatius Mabasa is a storyteller who mainly creates in his mother tongue Shona. His writing often explores themes of identity, culture and social justice, drawing on his experiences of living under colonial rule as well as during and after the country’s transition to independence.
He has had published six other literary publications. He is a Research Associate with the School of Languages at Rhodes University, a Senior Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and is currently lecturing at the University of Zimbabwe.
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