Emperor Shaka the Great: A Zulu Epic

Mazisi Kunene is the much-celebrated author of epics, such as Emperor Shaka the Great (UNodumehlezi KaMenzi) and Anthem of the Decades (Inhlokomo Yeminyaka), as well as numerous poems, short stories, nursery rhymes and proverbs that amount to a collection of more than 10 000 works. In UNodumehlezi KaMenzi (Emperor Shaka the Great), which he wrote during this exile period, he positions Shaka as a legendary thinker, who had great skill as a strategic and military genius.This vision acknowledges and re-imagines Shaka as a unifying cultural and political force that defined the cohesive Zulu nation. Kunene projects Shaka into the mythical ancestral universe that affirms the deep cultural lineage of the African world view. This reprinted English edition is published with the isiZulu edition on the tenth anniversary of his death, embracing Kunene's original dream to have his work published as intended in the original isiZulu form. The symbolic and cultural significance of these publications begins a process of re-evaluating and recontextualising Kunene's writing oeuvre. *As New*