The Nature and Culture Binary in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness
Jonathan Essuman 
, Confidence Gbolo Sanka, Philomena Ama Okyeso Yeboah and Moussa Traore
Issue: Vol.4 No.9 Article 10 pp.1137-1146
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20234910 | Published online 28th September, 2023
© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Culture, Ecological, Nature, Postcolonial-Ecocriticism, Sustainability
Amodu, Eneojoh J. “Literature as a Mirror of Society: A Literary Analysis of Mohammed Idris’‘A Mystical Ring.’” Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies 4, no. 1 (2016): 128–42.
Attwell, David. “Mda Turns to Nongqawuse for Inspiration.” Sunday Independent 28 (2001).
Cilano, Cara, and Elizabeth DeLoughrey. “Against Authenticity: Global Knowledges and Postcolonial Ecocriticism.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2007, 71–87.
Dolce, Maria Renata. “Reconciling Nature and Culture for an Eco-Sustainable World: Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness.” Le Simplegadi, no. 16 (2016): 61–73.
Huggan, Graham, and Helen Tiffin. Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment. Routledge, 2015.
Karmakar, Goutam, and Rajendra Chetty. “Epistemic (Dis) Belief and (Dis) Obedience: Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness and the Decolonial Ecological Turn.” Journal of Narrative and Language Studies 11, no. 21 (2023): 24–39.
Klopper, Dirk. “Between Nature and Culture: The Place of Prophecy in Zakes Mda’s the Heart of Redness.” Current Writing 20, no. 2 (January 2008): 92–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2008.9678303.
Mda, Zakes. The Heart of Redness . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper Collins, 1980.
Mignolo, Walter D. “Coloniality: The Darker Side of Modernity.” Modernologies: Contemporary Artists Researching Modernity and Modernism, 2009, 39–49.
Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press, 2011.
Pires, Ana Luisa Oliveira Goncalves. “From Neglected History to Tourist Attraction: Reordering the Past in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness.” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 44, no. 1 (2013): 127–51.
Samin, Richard. “Nongqawuse Resurrected: Legend and History in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness.” Commonwealth Essays and Studies 31, no. 31.1 (2008): 48–58.
Sewlall, Harry. “Deconstructing Empire in Joseph Conrad and Zakes Mda.” Journal of Literary Studies 19, no. 3_4 (2003): 331–44.
———. “‘Portmanteau Biota’ and Ecofeminist Interventions in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness.” Journal of Literary Studies 23, no. 4 (December 14, 2007): 374–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/02564710701786442.
Vital, Anthony. “Situating Ecology in Recent South African Fiction: JM Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals and Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness.” Journal of Southern African Studies 31, no. 2 (2005): 297–313.
White Jr, Lynn. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767 (1967): 1203–7.
Woodward, Wendy. “‘Jim Comes from Jo’burg’: Regionalised Identities and Social Comedy in Zakes Mda’s the Heart of Redness.” Current Writing 15, no. 2 (January 2003): 173–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2003.9678166.
Jonathan Essuman is a Lecturer of Literature at the Department of Languages Education, Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, (AAMUSTED) Kumasi, Ghana. He is currently a PhD candidate and holds both M.Phil and B.A. in English from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He has twelve (12) years teaching experience at all levels of education; Basic, Senior High and Tertiary. He is a member of the African Literature Association, USA. His research interests are within the scope of postcolonial literature, Literature and the Environment, Africana Womanism and Migration. He has attended several conferences both locally and internationally and presented papers at some of these conferences.
Confidence Gbolo Sanka (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST) Kumasi-Ghana. His research interests include African Literature (both oral and written), literary criticism, literary theory and stylistics. He has been teaching courses in Literature at the postgraduate and undergraduate levels.
Philomena Ama Okyeso Yeboah (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST) Kumasi-Ghana. Her research interests are in the area of Literatures of the Diaspora, the contested gendered terrain in Africa, and streetism and its rippling effects on the current generation of Africans. She teaches courses in Literature at the postgraduate and undergraduate levels.
Moussa Traore (Associate Professor) currently works at the Department of English, University of Cape Coast. He does research in English Literature, World Literature, Literary Theory, Diasporan studies and Postcolonialism. His current project is a ‘Book on Africa in Geopolitical and Globalization Context’. His current research interests are Writings from the Francophone Caribbean and Brazilian returnees in West Africa and new ways of reading Frantz Fanon. His method of gathering data is Textual Analysis. Professor Traore is currently working on a book on “The Way Forward for Africa in the 21st Century”.
Essuman, Jonathan, Sanka, Confidence G., Yeboah, Philomena A.O and Traore, Moussa.“The Nature and Culture Binary in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness.” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 4, no.9 (2023): 1137-1146. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20234910
© 2023 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
