MAZISI KUNENE’S RECONSTRUCTING IDENTITY: A STUDY OF SOUTH AFRICAN PREDICAMENT

Abstract

Mazisi Kunene is the icon of South African Poetry whose Poetic Sensibility took him to the zenith of his poetic career when UNESCO honoured him as Africa’s Poet Laureate in 1993. In 2005 he was named South African Poet Laureate. He was an Anti- apartheid activist who strived to bring equality to the oppressed majority. His poems reverberate with a deep yearning to cling on to his native roots; his culture, music, songs and those that encompass the native identity. He expresses his sorrow for becoming a hypocrite who has to hide his natural self and is compelled to ape the Western culture. Before colonization eons ago the African nation had its own indigenous culture and rich heritage but the colonizers, the egoistic imperialists failed to understand the richness of African culture, they mercilessly cut off the natives from their cultural roots. The colonizers thrusted upon the natives a new code of conduct, new mannerism, new religion and new language which resulted in alienated individuals with a divided consciousness. But irony is that though Mazisi Kunene wrote in Zulu, his native language but the coloniser’s language has become an effective and poignant weapon to express the greatness of the native culture and his translated version of his poems are a testimony to it.