Living Memory: Building Communities and a Life-In-Common in Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying

Abstract

In Zakes Mda's novel "Ways of Dying" a recurring mantra is found between the two characters Toloki and Noria. They tell each other they both know ways of how to live, an important factor in the violent South Africa at the time of the ending Apartheid era. Through ideas on what a community is, what it depends on, and how it is strengthened I will explore how this becomes successful ways of living. With ideas from history, philosophy, feminism and post-colonialism this magical story of Toloki and Noria, their lives in the village and the unnamed city in South Africa becomes an explorative endeavor of what it means for a community-identity and a shared life-in-common to exist in a time where such a significant change is about to come.