Zakes Mda: filler of the void

Abstract

One of the difficulties of defining Zakes Mda is precisely that he eludes definition. A strong marker of his public intellectualism is his ability to straddle so many roles (writer, academic, social commentator, activist, entrepreneur, artist, musician, filmmaker, beekeeper) and literary genres (playwright, novelist, poet, biographer), and thereby to appeal to many and various publics. As Anthony Egan has said of him, 'Depending on our age, some of us associate Zakes Mda with finely crafted novels that combine humour with social commentary; an earlier generation regards him as one of the best exponents of South African protest theatre; a few regard him as primarily an academic. He is all of the above and more - as his highly engaging memoirs demonstrate'. Egan's review of Sometimes there is a Void: Memoirs of an Outsider is titled 'Story of a Renaissance Man'; to which one could add, since nature abhors a vacuum, 'filler of the void'.