The African Nativity
A retelling of the Biblical story by a reverentially subversive South African author Thando Mgqolozana.
When Here Me Alone started with “Dear Theophilus”, I had a feeling it was going to be work. But, being the superficial clout-chaser that I am, all it took was a glowing comment on the jacket from the venerable South African author Zakes Mda to make me decide it was worth the effort. Mda calls Thando Mgqolozana’s second novel Hear Me Alone an “intertextual triumph” .
The novel is written in a series of letters from a young, Roman-educated Nazarene named Epher to his patron, redressing the original script that details the miraculous birth of Christ.
It took a few false starts. Jarred by the first-person prose, coupled with all of the Biblical references, I eventually found my footing in the story’s intrigue. You might think that the universality of the Nativity story would make it impossible to write any spoilers, but Mgqolozana wants to set you straight, this is not the story you imagined.
Epher’s letters tell a story of one crazy summer in Nazareth
While on a break from university, Epher stays with his grandmother Kishoma, his errant grandfather, Zach, and their sage servant, Kush. The Nazarenes are divided among those who hold fast to their pagan traditions and silent conspirators who have adopted belief in The Virgin.
Despite their reservations, the villagers rely on Epher’s training as a gynaecologist skilled in complicated births. Epher’s training seems to make him more sensitive to the experiences of the women of the village and he takes exception to their commodification. His objection to their treatment becomes personal when the woman he loves, Bellewa Miriam, is promised by her father to the widower Joseph. When Miriam is prophesied to give birth to The Lamb, who will become King of the land, Epher feels the masculine urge to address the paternity of this miraculous being.
The characters are guided by their “hear me alones” — directly translated from the Xhosa word umvandedwa — their inner voice of conscience which, though unheard by others, cannot be written out of the story.
I was reminded of another brilliant historical novel by the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz about the “heretic pharaoh” Akhenaton. His book turned the one-dimensional hieroglyphic images as we usually picture ancient Egyptians into actualized people with inner conflicts and personhood. In fact, in Hear Me Alone, the protagonist Epher criticizes previous scripture for having “no moment for contemplation, there is no silence — which is also to say, there is no life. Our people remove themselves from their own stories.”
Is Nazareth where we think it is?
This book sets a very Biblical scene, images of shepherds, orgies, following stars to specific locations. There are references to Zacharia and the murderous King Herod. Despite this heavy imagery, I could not help but picture the entire story in a tiny South African village. There are several mannerisms and phrases that would sound familiar to Xhosa speakers.
At one point, the servant Kush sings a hymn in English that is actually a well-known Xhosa hymn. And this is how stealthily Mgqolozana writes in duality. The “intertextual triumph” to which Mda referred is the author’s unconventional use of language to swim between paganism and the Bible, the introduction of Christianity in Africa, believers and skeptics.
Still, it never occurred to me that Mgqolozana’s intention in this novel was ever to blaspheme or scandalize, but simply to suggest that there is room for doubt in belief. Both tradition and scripture must be interrogated for context, for the grey area, for the full story. And the story here has a wonderfully suspenseful pace and a powerful ending.
This isn’t the first time Mgqolozana, a Mandela Rhodes Scholar, has challenged the status quo. His first novel, “A Man Who is Not a Man”, reflects on the hazardous Xhosa initiation practice. He has also boycotted various South African literary festivals for not being inclusive of all Black authors. Indeed, even his publisher, Jacana Media, is known in South Africa for championing critical and radical literature, of which this novel is rapturous example.
