Mitshimbilo (“Wanderlust Disease”): Africa’s Future in Zakes Mda’s Sculptors of Mapungubwe and Two of Ben Okri’s Novels

Abstract

Summary This article extends a deliberation on the centrality of the shaman to the spiritual turn in African literatures, where it was argued that Ben Okri and Zakes Mda’s respective models of shamanism in Sculptors of Mapungubwe and Dangerous Love are bound inward and outward. This argument is rephrased; this time, postulating that, in both authors’ work, shamanism surfaces in heterogeneous and interlocking voices – all keyed into the motif of travel such as is central to the Orphic quest. It continues that what distinguishes Mda is the fact that he captures these perspectives in mitshimbilo (“wanderlust disease”) – which is a Tshivenda concept that Mda uses to critique the East African slave trade. By contrast, Okri anchors heteroglossia in a subjectivity which the article associates with Black Atlantic polyglot, underpinning its essence of reclamation with his adaptation of the West African narrative of the Spirit Child, or Abiku. A proposition is also made that these contrasting sets of assorted voices foreground corresponding dispositions of an expanded sense of consciousness. The analysis develops in two phases. First, presenting synopses of the primary texts, the examination draws attention to how, in its allusions to everyday culture, mitshimbilo foregrounds shamanism in contrasting postcolonial lenses and non-realisms that have yet to be appreciated. The final section closely reads how the identified insinuations in Sculptors of Mapungubwe distinguish its shamanism from Okri’s.