APC Associate and Historical Studies lecturer awarded NIHSS 2022 Humanities and Social Sciences Awards
Dr Athambile Masola has been awarded one of the NIHSS awards for her book Ilifa in the Best Fiction Poetry category. According to the book blurb:
.. her debut collection of poems she freely and fruitfully explores the realities of love, morality and pleasure in a dangerous world. Unabashedly modern in style and contemporary in her outlook, Masola looks with fresh eyes at the ways in which South Africans’ freedoms are still restricted by their circumstances – particularly by poverty and widespread abuse against women. Equally, however, these poems extol the possibility of healing through allowing one to listen to oneself…
According to Prof Pumla Dineo Gqola in her review for the New Frame, the publication “interrogates Black South African women’s literary traditions across different generations and literary disciplines”. Masola uses isiXhosa “that is written as it is spoken – as language that is urban, alive, and is a reflection of our own unique time and place: a society in which freedom continues to be conditional”.
Brittle Paper’s review locates the collection of poetry as engaging questions about claims to freedom in South Africa against the backdrop of poverty and violence against women whilst being a “society that is celebrated for dismantling one of the most oppressive systems of the modern world”. Themes in the collection include the local female experience, freedom and love while exploring healing and the possibility of envisioning alternative future realities for the country.
References
Athambile Masola’s debut is a poetic tour de force
https://www.newframe.com/athambile-masolas-debut-is-a-poetic-tour-de-force/
17 Mar 2022
Athambile Masola’s Collection of isiXhosa Poetry Centers South African Women’s Lives
https://www.newframe.com/athambile-masolas-debut-is-a-poetic-tour-de-force/
October 27, 2021