Vumani : A Novel

Abstract

It was always the case. Vumani Mzondeki verily believed he would not live beyond adolescence. He accepted this possibility and made peace with it. His age notwithstanding, he secretly went to the cemetery to identify his grave. As luck would have it, or perhaps unluckily so, he did not die when he expected to. He lived long enough to see adulthood, with a solid career as a private school teacher. Despite his vocational success, Vumani too was once caught up in the tidal currents of his times, which made his life read like a script of a horror movie. Like his entire generation of black children, he lived in the shadow of his painful childhood memories, which he concealed well behind his calm exterior.