The Madonna of Excelsior

A generous patient wry and intelligent voice...[that] suggests not just a writer who can seduce us through beautiful language and unfailing humor. We also encounter a writer who has the power to shock and frighten us to astound and anger and unsettle us...In short his is a voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration. --Neil Gordon New York Times Book ReviewSelection Summer Reading New York Times Book ReviewIn 1971 nineteen citizens of Excelsior in South Africa''s white-ruled Free State were charged with breaking apartheid''s Immorality Act which forbade sex between blacks and whites. Taking this case as raw material for his alchemic imagination Zakes Mda tells the story of one irrepressible fallen madonna Niki and her family at the heart of the scandal.