Kasala Poems
Fiston Mwanza Mujila author J Bret Maney translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Deep Vellum Publishing
Published:29th Aug '24
£16.00
Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.
A new poetic form from Fiston Mwanza Mujila, lauded author of novels Tram 83 and The Villain's Dance and poetry collection The River in the Belly.
Kasala Poems are rooted in a traditional form of praise poem that ties together proverbs, myths, fables, and riddles into a recitation, accompanied by music. In Mwanza Mujila’s skilled hands, this becomes a multimedia form, set to the page while retaining the remarkable drama, emotion, and celebration of its performed root. In Kasala Poems, multiple lyrical traditions create a hybrid world of different global spaces and layers of time. Within this world, everything is possible, real and surreal at the same time. With the rhythmic, frenetic energy found in his poetry, prose, and performances, Fiston Mwanza Mujila reanimates and simultaneously deconstructs ideas of the (post)colonial environment.
Praise for The River in the Belly:
"In this raucous, electrifying what-is-it?—memoir, broken novel, poem series? or is it mainly a protest against the way that dreams can vanish like migrating birds?—Fiston Mwanza Mujila opens every stopcock that holds back his lust for life. His words rush forward in punctuated swells— like the Congo River he so often mentions. International in his imagination, wary of spells cast by sorcerer-crocodiles and waitresses, Mwanza Mujila masters a visceral, multilingual, song-spiked account of human experience that no one will forget." –Forrest Gander, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Be With
"This is, at its source, an expat author's declaration of identity, and just as the river has formed Mr. Mujila, he has laid a claim to its legacy." —Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
"Composed of 101 numbered 'solitudes,' Mwanza Mujila's collection is equal parts hallucination, augury, and crônica, with fragments that appear out of order and are often enigmatically brief, grotesque, and surreally humorous." —Jay G Ying, Harriet Books
"Tram 83, the first of Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s works to appear in the United States, made for a thrilling read. Now he’s returned with a new collection inspired by the Congo River, giving readers an even greater sense of the range of his work." —Vol. 1 Brooklyn
ISBN: 9781646053377
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
200 pages