This criticism of SA has allowed Mda to write some of the most critically acclaimed novels and plays including Ways of Dying and The Madonna of Excelsior.
This criticism of SA has allowed Mda to write some of the most critically acclaimed novels and plays includingRelatively new in the world of novels after being a successful playwright in the 70s and 80s, Mda decided to delve into novels and tried to get his book,published in 1990, but it was rejected by a publishing house which criticised it as a “feminist diatribe”.
Mda, who is now 74, says he always knew he would become a painter and a writer and that the San people are the earliest influences of his paintings. Mda says he is inspired my many things when he writes and paints, including dreams, places he has been to and weird conversations he has had with strangers.
“I don’t write messages, I’m a storyteller, even in my paintings they are a narrative art. I never approach any form of writing by thinking of what message I want to pass in the story, sometimes I do not know and some reader will discover it through interpretation.”