“Mxolisi Nyezwa’s poems are both violent and tender, with an immediacy of language that strikes the reader like a cry, or a note of music. Malikhanye is his third book of poems after Song Trials (2000) and New Country (2008). The book’s title comes from the extended lyrical sequence following the death of his infant son Malikhanye, a poem of great humility and beauty.” – Deepsouth Website
“The climax is the sequence of poems “Malikhanye”, dedicated to his son, Malikhanye Nyezwa, who passed away at the age of three months. It is a work of haunting depth and tender irony, populated with startling images and intense juxtapositions. At its height it is the equal of Garcia Lorca’s “Elegy for Sancho Meijas”, and very reminiscent of Vallejo’s meditations on life and mortality and human suffering, full of probing and relentless reflections.” – Kyle Allan, LitNet
About the Author
From the Deep South Website:
“Mxolisi Nyezwa was born in 1967 in Bhlawa, New Brighton, Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha. He is the author of three books of poems in English, a book of isiXhosa poems and a prose poetry memoir. His poetry has appeared in several anthologies in South Africa and internationally. In 1997 Nyezwa founded the multilingual cultural journal Kotaz, which he still edits, as well as publishing literary books in isiXhosa under the imprint Imbizo Arts. He runs a small business centre and urban chicken farm in Motherwell, outside Gqeberha.”
