Litnet

Stemme | Voices | Amazwi is LitNet’s series of 15 short, powerful monologues, presented in collaboration with Suidoosterfees, NATi and ATKV. In Fred Khumalo’s Ingoma kaTutu a praise singer pays homage to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and chastises the South African government for corruption and ineffective leadership. Zamah Nkonyeni performs the monologue, directed by Mdu Kweyama. Watch the performance in isiZulu with English subtitles here.

Fred Khumalo: "The riskier the choice I make, the more rewarding it is for me as a writer."

"Lockdown brought us together again in a way that threw us back to that time when our kids were still very small and were all in love with television and insisted on watching with us. So, the other day, we sat down as a family and embarked on a visual journey, which I know for sure we would have missed out on in a coronavirus-free country."

"The great South African composer RT Caluza wrote the song about the 1918 epidemic that killed hundreds of thousands of South Africans, the influenza. Imfuluyenza. Listen to the song, very evocative..."

"I was heartened by the realisation of many that all the young generation needed to do was dip into your intellect and swim in your poetry to appreciate better the work that has been done. There was no need to reinvent the spear. The time was to accept the spear from the hands of the elders, and charge forward."

"My pen is my machine gun. My words are my bullets. I committed myself a long time ago that I shall use my words to fight injustice wherever it shows up."