The brave and resilient Son of Africa

Destiny Mokoena

Description

This book is like an oasis of sheer beauty in the heart of an almost inaccessible wilderness. In this book, the author, Destiny Mokoena's writing quality makes him resemble the youthful volcanic cone atop, an ancient base, towering above the plains and plateaus of East Africa. His creative mind comes alive like the complex deltas that form and reform, striking a balance between the forces of river and sea. Author Destiny Mokoena has touched the present and the future, articulated a vision and proclaimed a dream for humanity by conscientising people about the vices of torturing, dehumanizing and discriminating against people who are living with albinism. Besides waging war against the evil- minded, the author is also demolishing prison walls of ignorance that prevail in the world, about the cause and the nature of albinism as well as those who are living with disabilities. It is a known fact that, to society, ignorance is like a raw sewage that is polluting the rivers. In this book, Mokoena sings about the marginalised, cries about them and dreams about them too. The scintillating narration of the story tells us that the author's mind is rich in creative wealth just like the sheltered networks of deep, tranquil embayments in Antananarivo, which have been a favoured haven and port of call for seamen through the ages. His progressive ideas are as enjoyable as witnessing the waters of the glacier-fed river, veiled by swirling mist, plunging over a precipice of dark volcanic rock on its way towards the Greenland Sea, a southern arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The beauty of his English usage is like that of the pine forests of the Black Hills in the US that loom above the Belle Fourche River in north-eastern Wyoming. Its intoxicating nature is like that of the glowing mass of a noctilucent cloud that hangs hauntingly over a night-time Finnish skyline.

Sujets

• Littérature Africaine
• Littérature Africaine
• Novel
• Littérature sud-africaine
• Littérature Sud-Africaine

Informations

• Publié par: Sharpshoot Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The brave and resilient Son of Africa

By Destiny Mokoena

Destiny Mokoena

Let my pen dance to the rhythm of intellectual freedom. Let my life vibrate in rhythm with the tremors of time. For I belong to Africa, the land of heroes and heroines. For I swim in the deepest seas of knowledge. I bask in the literary warmth of dawn as my pen hums the hymn of the living dead. I smile in the face of the river of words. My fingers clasp a circle of truth in a quest to be understood. My ink paints a sad picture of the lives of those who are living with albinism.

i

Acknowledgement A. Nature worked very hard for billions of years to build complex organisms like my dad Abe Mokoena, whose mind is profoundly complex, with enough variables to defy a computer. Through your experience and wide knowledge that you have accumulated, you are the guru of column writing and literary creation. You taught me so well and refined my writing skills. And my endless gratitude will always be directed at you for being the editor and proof reader of this book. Your motivation and confidence in my literary potential gives me the courage to continue writing books. You are like the engineers in Mesopotamia who criss crossed canals back and forth between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, turning the desert into a lush wheat growing country that supported many more people than live there today. There is no doubt that your mind is a flourishing oasis of ideas. Your brain is like an Icelandic hot spring that vents a plume of steam to the sky. It is like the wings of the great Morphorhetenor butterfly which is native to the American rain forest and dazzlingly brilliant when flashing in the sunlight. And your ideas are like the clouds that shadow the jungled delta of the Amazon, the earthȁs greatest river. Your amazing creativity is as exciting as Canadaȁs highest falls,Takakkaw which thunders 1200 feet down an eroded chute in a glacier- scraped Rocky Mountain chasm in the Yoho National Park.

ii

If you were a river, multitudes would come to stand on its banks to admire its beauty, authors would write songs about it and wordsmiths would compose poems about it.

B. My mum, Melia Malesa Mokoena. You are like the minerals in the rocks and colonies of algae that flourish in the warmth of a thermal pool. You are like the scalding hot river just below the Arctic Circle that pours from the vents of one of Icelandȁs many geothermal springs. Your motherly advices have armed me against the thundering storms of life. You are like the subtropical vegetation that thrives at Logan Gardens in a corner of Scotland warmed by the Gulf Stream. You are as amazing as the plant Tillandsia-one plant that can survive in the Peruvian desert, a rootless air plant that traps and consumes moisture from the coastal mist. Without you, I am like a bird without a song. You are so special and your support is my Oxygen.

C. Thabiso Mokoena, my elder brother, thank you for believing in my work. Your mind is like the worldȁs highest large lake, filled by melting snows which gleam among the Andean peaks of Peru and Bolivia at an altitude of nearly 12,500 feet. Yes, your mind is like the waterfalls after heavy rains that bloom everywhere on the mist-shrouded bluffs of Milford Sound, one of the many breathtakingly steep fiords cut by glaciers from the hard rock of New Zealandȁs Southern Island. You are like the blue gleam of the iii

underground river which flashes in the powerful illumination of an explorerȁs headlamp. Your support makes my pen ululate the intellectual prowess of the ancient kings and queens of Africa. You inspire my pen to chant the praises of the Ashante Empire that curved and molded the purest gold.

D. Junior Mokoena, my younger brother, to me you are like the rain-bearing clouds that billow over the warm current and drift inland towards the high peaks along the western edge of the Andes. Your support makes things easy for me as I brandish a billion words in my head. You make my mind roll like the waves in the sea.

E. Thank you to all my friends and fellow students at the University of the Free State. Thank you to my publisher, Mr. Peter Maidi of Sharp Shoot for making the publication of this book possible. I humbly follow in the footsteps of one great thinker who once advised that, ȁUntil the lion learns how to write, the story will always glorify the hunter.Ȃ

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ȁ…The great gift has to come from “frica-giving the world a more human face. Steve Biko at the Ecumenical Lay Training Centre, Edendale, Natal, in 1971. v

THE BRAVE AND RESILIENT SON OF AFRICA is a novel crafted by Destiny Mokoena. Published by: Sharp Shoot Publishing PO Box 2893 POLOKWANE 0700 Copyright © Destiny Mokoena estate A ll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from publishers. First Edition: 2020 ISBN: 978-1-77603-059-0 Printed & bound by: Sharp Shoot Printing  PO BOX 2893  POLOKWANE  0700 Tel : [phone] Fax : [phone] E-mail : [e-mail] Book design & layout: Sharp Shoot Publishing Cover Design by Sharp Shoot Publishing

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THE RIGHT TO WRITE ȁNo matter how much they censor, I shall write and I shall read.Ȃ Philosopher Aristotle. vii

TELLING OUR OWN STORIES AS AFRICANS ȁI am frightened and disgusted at the same time, at a people who produce nothing and consume everything that others produce.Ȃ Chika Onyeani, Nigerian Writer: (The Capitalist Nigger),  viii

ȃWhen we were slaves, we spoke as slaves we understood as slaves, we thought as slaves; but as we became free, we cast off the chains of servitude.Ȅ Canaan Banana: A one-time Zimbabwean leader. (From his poem titledLiberating Love) ix