Ways of Dying

Winner of the M-Net Book PrizeShortlisted for the CNA and Noma Awards In Ways of Dying Zakes Mda''s acclaimed first novel Toloki is a professional mourner in a vast and violent city of the new South Africa. Day after day he attends funerals in the townships dressed with dignity in a threadbare suit cape and battered top hat to comfort the grieving families of the victims of the city''s crime racial hatred and crippling poverty. At a Christmas day funeral for a young boy Toloki is reunited with Noria a woman from his village. Together they help each other to heal the past and as their story interweaves with those of their acquaintances this elegant short novel provides a magical and painful picture of South Africa today.Ways of Dying was awarded South Africa''s prestigious M-Net Book Prize awarded by the TV channel M-Net to books written in one of South Africa''s official languages and was shortlisted for the Central News Agency (CNA) Award and the Noma Award an Africa-wide prize founded by Shoichi Noma onetime president of Kodansha International.