Syned Mthatiwa
Biographic Data
| ID | 5448145 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Syned Mthatiwa |
| GIVEN NAMES | Syned |
| FAMILY NAME | Mthatiwa |
| SIGNATURE | MTHATIWA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Malawi |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0342-4637 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
No Respite to Despotic Tyranny’ in Malawi
Allusiveness, Language and Imagery in Francis Moto's Gazing at The Setting Sun
Francis Moto is a Malawian writer who has published poetry both in vernacular (Chichewa) and in English. His poetry in English appears in a collection titled Gazing at the Setting Sun published in 1994, the year Malawians voted Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda and his Malawi Congress Party (MCP) out of power. Besides recording the suffering of Malawians during the autocratic leadership of the first post-independence president, Dr Banda, and remembering t…
‘Voyage across Cultures and Climes’
A reading of the poetry by David Kerr, a British mobile professional in southern Africa, shows that he does not only cast a critical and ironic look at the various cultures and socio-political behaviours he encounters in his sojourns, but also at himself as a white man and at the actions of white people in Africa. This paper focuses on selected poems from Tangled Tongues that deal with Kerr’s positionality and sense of identity and those that dep…
Celebrity Politics, Political Cynicism and Contestations of Credibility in Lucius Banda’s Songs
Lucius Banda is one of the renowned popular musicians in Malawi. His songs explore a wide range of political and social issues. In 2003 he joined the United Democratic Front (UDF) party and decided to run for parliament representing Balaka North Constituency. This paper focuses on Banda’s transition from musician to celebrity politician, and on what his music and behaviour after joining politics reveal about the man who prefers to be called soldi…
Traumatic memory, autobiography and history in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s memoirs and A Grain of Wheat
The publication of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s childhood memoirs, Dreams in a Time of War and In the House of the Interpreter, gave his readers a glimpse of his troubled past as a young boy growing up in colonial Kenya. While getting to grips with Ngugi’s difficult childhood, one notices that the memoirs and A Grain of Wheat are simultaneously personal, social and political actions that highlight the evils of a colonial past. In this paper I undertake a …
Moyo wa Mtauni
Cities in Africa and beyond have been sites of conflicting and contradictory associations in human cultures from their very beginning. Some regard the African city as a place of hope and fulfilment, freedom and opportunity, while others view it as an emblem of cultural decay and a nexus of corruption, perversion, greed, destruction and death. In this article we explore these ambivalent attitudes towards the city and urban life by focusing on Mala…
Animals, Nostalgia and Zimbabwe’s Rural Landscape in the Poetry of Chenjerai Hove and Musaemura Zimunya
Living in and Traversing Cities
Movement, or travel, characterises the life of Lindiwe Bishop, the main character and narrator in Irene Sabatini’s debut novel, The Boy Next Door. In this paper I examine how Lindiwe’s movements, and experiences in Zimbabwe’s major cities, Harare and Bulawayo, contribute to her construction of a city-dweller’s and a Coloured identity. I also examine how, as places, the cities are related to her identity formation. In the paper I put forward a soc…
Bare Truths”
David Kerr’s collection of poetry, Tangled Tongues, published in 2003, has not received much critical attention. This is not because he does not tackle critical socio-cultural and political issues relevant to their context, southern Africa, where he is based. The reason why his poetry is undervalued can partly be explained by his status as an outsider, a British expat writing about postcolonial Africa. An analysis of the poetry, however, reveals …
Home and belonging in Irene Sabatini’s The Boy Next Door and Andrea Eames’ The Cry of the Go-Away Bird
In this article I examine how, in their novels The Boy Next Door and The Cry of the Go-Away Bird , Irene Sabatini and Andrea Eames, respectively, allow us to reflect on questions of whiteness, home, and belonging in Zimbabwe. I argue that in these novels the experiences, behaviours, and attitudes of whites towards Africa and black people contest and subvert their belonging to Zimbabwe and highlight their failure to accept the end of Rhodesia. Whi…
Subjectivity and Belonging in the Poetry of Bart Wolffe
In his work Bart Wolffe, the exiled white Zimbabwean writer, talks of his explorations of the mountains, hills and forests of Zimbabwe and his experiences with nature (especially as a child). The works, especially the ones he has written while in exile, show that his longing and nostalgia for the lost paradisiacal world of his childhood has more to do with his disconnection or displacement from the Zimbabwean world of nature than any other form o…
Traumatic memory, autobiography and history in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s memoirs and A Grain of Wheat
The publication of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s childhood memoirs, Dreams in a Time of War and In the House of the Interpreter, gave his readers a glimpse of his troubled past as a young boy growing up in colonial Kenya. While getting to grips with Ngugi’s difficult childhood, one notices that the memoirs and A Grain of Wheat are simultaneously personal, social and political actions that highlight the evils of a colonial past. In this paper I undertake a …
Home and belonging in Irene Sabatini’s The Boy Next Door and Andrea Eames’ The Cry of the Go-Away Bird
In this article I examine how, in their novels The Boy Next Door and The Cry of the Go-Away Bird , Irene Sabatini and Andrea Eames, respectively, allow us to reflect on questions of whiteness, home, and belonging in Zimbabwe. I argue that in these novels the experiences, behaviours, and attitudes of whites towards Africa and black people contest and subvert their belonging to Zimbabwe and highlight their failure to accept the end of Rhodesia. Whi…
Subjectivity and Belonging in the Poetry of Bart Wolffe
In his work Bart Wolffe, the exiled white Zimbabwean writer, talks of his explorations of the mountains, hills and forests of Zimbabwe and his experiences with nature (especially as a child). The works, especially the ones he has written while in exile, show that his longing and nostalgia for the lost paradisiacal world of his childhood has more to do with his disconnection or displacement from the Zimbabwean world of nature than any other form o…
Animals, Nostalgia and Zimbabwe’s Rural Landscape in the Poetry of Chenjerai Hove and Musaemura Zimunya
Living in and Traversing Cities
Movement, or travel, characterises the life of Lindiwe Bishop, the main character and narrator in Irene Sabatini’s debut novel, The Boy Next Door. In this paper I examine how Lindiwe’s movements, and experiences in Zimbabwe’s major cities, Harare and Bulawayo, contribute to her construction of a city-dweller’s and a Coloured identity. I also examine how, as places, the cities are related to her identity formation. In the paper I put forward a soc…
Bare Truths”
David Kerr’s collection of poetry, Tangled Tongues, published in 2003, has not received much critical attention. This is not because he does not tackle critical socio-cultural and political issues relevant to their context, southern Africa, where he is based. The reason why his poetry is undervalued can partly be explained by his status as an outsider, a British expat writing about postcolonial Africa. An analysis of the poetry, however, reveals …
Home and belonging in Irene Sabatini’s The Boy Next Door and Andrea Eames’ The Cry of the Go-Away Bird
In this article I examine how, in their novels The Boy Next Door and The Cry of the Go-Away Bird , Irene Sabatini and Andrea Eames, respectively, allow us to reflect on questions of whiteness, home, and belonging in Zimbabwe. I argue that in these novels the experiences, behaviours, and attitudes of whites towards Africa and black people contest and subvert their belonging to Zimbabwe and highlight their failure to accept the end of Rhodesia. Whi…
Moyo wa Mtauni
Cities in Africa and beyond have been sites of conflicting and contradictory associations in human cultures from their very beginning. Some regard the African city as a place of hope and fulfilment, freedom and opportunity, while others view it as an emblem of cultural decay and a nexus of corruption, perversion, greed, destruction and death. In this article we explore these ambivalent attitudes towards the city and urban life by focusing on Mala…
Allusiveness, Language and Imagery in Francis Moto's Gazing at The Setting Sun
Francis Moto is a Malawian writer who has published poetry both in vernacular (Chichewa) and in English. His poetry in English appears in a collection titled Gazing at the Setting Sun published in 1994, the year Malawians voted Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda and his Malawi Congress Party (MCP) out of power. Besides recording the suffering of Malawians during the autocratic leadership of the first post-independence president, Dr Banda, and remembering t…
‘Voyage across Cultures and Climes’
A reading of the poetry by David Kerr, a British mobile professional in southern Africa, shows that he does not only cast a critical and ironic look at the various cultures and socio-political behaviours he encounters in his sojourns, but also at himself as a white man and at the actions of white people in Africa. This paper focuses on selected poems from Tangled Tongues that deal with Kerr’s positionality and sense of identity and those that dep…
Celebrity Politics, Political Cynicism and Contestations of Credibility in Lucius Banda’s Songs
Lucius Banda is one of the renowned popular musicians in Malawi. His songs explore a wide range of political and social issues. In 2003 he joined the United Democratic Front (UDF) party and decided to run for parliament representing Balaka North Constituency. This paper focuses on Banda’s transition from musician to celebrity politician, and on what his music and behaviour after joining politics reveal about the man who prefers to be called soldi…
Traumatic memory, autobiography and history in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s memoirs and A Grain of Wheat
The publication of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s childhood memoirs, Dreams in a Time of War and In the House of the Interpreter, gave his readers a glimpse of his troubled past as a young boy growing up in colonial Kenya. While getting to grips with Ngugi’s difficult childhood, one notices that the memoirs and A Grain of Wheat are simultaneously personal, social and political actions that highlight the evils of a colonial past. In this paper I undertake a …
No Respite to Despotic Tyranny’ in Malawi
Art (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Literature (6 works) · African history and culture studies (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Poetry (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works)