Zakes Mda’s SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID picked as one of Alexandra Fuller's Top Ten African Memoirs

Acclaimed South African author Zakes Mda's candid, vigorous autobiography SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID has been selected as one of Alexandra Fuller's 'Top Ten African Memoirs' in the UK Guardian. The memoir is published in South Africa by Penguin and will be published in the US by FSG in March 2012.

Fuller says: 'Mda's electric honesty is a live current through his remarkably gorgeous, urgent, poetic, matter-of-fact memoir. But don't get lulled into thinking this is just the book of one bravely truthful man's journey into self-expression. Mda has shaken off calcification, identity, ego and walked us all into sovereignty and selfhood. Read this, and be prepared to examine your own soul as never before.'

For the full list, click here.

Praise for SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID:

'A compelling read, for the story of his life resembles a lyrically written thriller…Mda has written his…memoir in vivid and searingly honest style.' -- Sue Grant-Marshall, Business Day

'Mda is a wonderful author and South Africa can be proud to have him in its stock…be sure to grab yourself a copy of his book.' -- Tessa Reed, mediaupdate.co.za

'The narration of his personal revelations is compelling, honest, amusing, sometimes tragi-comic in its presentation of this younger self as a kind of buffoon who succeeds in bungling everything, except love letter-writing…This is Zakes Mda's story. It must be read.' -- Maureen Isaacson, The Sunday Independent

Praise for Zakes Mda:

'For a long time, white writers dominated South African literature - Paton, Brink, Gordimer, Coetzee. Post-apartheid, Zakes Mda, looks like the great South African novelist of his generation, a writer rich in both imagination and ironic political attitude.' -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

'Mda writes from the inside with a rare combination of passion and truth that will connect with readers everywhere.' -- Booklist

'A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration' -- The New York Times

'In novel after novel, Zakes Mda seems to have cultivated a mode of writing in which the realistic and the magical co-exist with unruffled ease.' -- Harry Garuba, Independent

'Zakes Mda is among the most acclaimed exponents of a new artistic freedom. His fiction has a beguiling lyricism and humour, revelling in the beauty of aloe-covered mountains or Cape marine life.' -- Maya Jaggi, The Guardian