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Tuesday 28 June 2016

Nwelezelanga reading experience


I am perplexed by this story. This is tragic. I cannot decipher anything from this story. Most of the time I was not sure what I was being told but I found that I understood some of it. I cannot say I know what this child came to do in the physical world as it is not clear to me what she came to fulfill. Was it to stop the killing of albino people? Was it to bring death to the Midwife who killed all infant albinos that were born under her surveillance and sacrificed those that we somehow able to escape death by the luck of the draw? At the end of this story I am left with many questions of what I could have gleaned from the story. Perhaps it is to understand the ways of those who believe in ukuthwasa... perhaps it is to tell me that I am fooling myself by thinking that I am not a god? I just wonder...

I think the story could have provided more meat to the bones... I feel like Nwelezelanga's suffering in the physical world due to her albinism was not depicted as horrid as I have heard it to be. She experienced the same kind of ostracizing that is experienced by children who are rejected by society because they are too ugly, too dark, perceived to have senyama, of some unfortunate child that some believer in medicine made from human parts preys on. She was mocked, I was mocked. She herded cattle, I herded cattle. She collected water from rivers and wells, I did the same. She collected firewood, I did the same. She hoed maize fields, I did that and more.

I was never invoked to sympathize with her even though her mother threw her away because to her it did not result in any suffering and she somehow expected it.

I give it 2 stars because it was written in simple easy to understand language. I think perhaps I am just not capable of appreciating this kind of story. Or maybe it is the Christian in me that rejects the notions in this story.

I hope the next book Unathi writes will not be so confusing to me because I wish to support him.

I have to add that  my mother read this book after me and she had a different experience to what I had. She was pleasantly surprised by the insight the writer had about the spiritual world and how he expressed it.

Go to https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8205613-tumelo-moleleki" to read all my reviews and my journey as I was reading the book

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