Kassidy HauseCWL 320-06, Fall 2013Dr. Talar ChahinianFinal Document12-10-13Ways of Dying, Violence, Fantasy, and ComedyZakes Mda was born in 1948 in Herschel, South Africa and is known for being a novelist, poet, activist, playwright, and cultural theorist. Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda is a novel with a Western form. Literature written by black South African writers between 1948 and 1994 truly captures the oppression and tragic violence that characterized black life under apartheid. Apartheid or “apartness,” as some Afrikaans call it, describes a system of laws and policies of complete and total racial segregation in South Africa, which began in 1948 when the National Party came to power. Apartheid did not end until 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected president in the first democratic elections. The horrific deaths described in the novel Ways of Dying by Zake Mda were all real ways of dying that Zakes Mda saw himself, read about in the newspaper, or read about while doing research. The very real deaths that he portrays in the novel really paint a picture of the structural and political violence that was occurring in South Africa during apartheid. This violence and oppression truly creates a tragic backdrop for the novel, however, Zakes Mda challenges the norm of violence and finds a way to portray it as something quite idiotic, which in turn makes Ways of Dying quite comical. He also combines fantasy and magic in the novel, which emulates all the spectacular and wonderful parts of South African beliefs and traditions. Zake's unique way of combining the depiction of how ridiculous it is that death has become so normalized in South Africa and the magic and fantasy makes Ways of Dying a... medium of paper... Magic and fantasy are also a central theme for this book because magic gives a sense of hope and trust in people and a strength that people didn't know they had. The greatest example is the garden, a magical garden of beauty that still stands among all the horrible things where Toloki and Noria live. The garden gives them hope that magic and beauty still exist in the world. In this part of the novel, readers laugh and smile because they feel hope, happiness, and a sense of magic that they will overcome their problems and be okay. Ways of Dying is a spectacular novel by Zakes Mda, written during apartheid. it was a horrible time for South Africans who were abused and killed by their corrupt government. Zakes Mda was able to provide a sense of history, comedy and hope in one novel and one that every reader would want to read.