Colonial Discourse and the Jesus-fication of King Chaka
Despite Chaka being considered an African literary masterpiece, Thomas Mofolo has paradoxically been dismissed by critics as a “mission boy” who wrote “as a Christian” and, thus, naively extolled the virtues of the white man’s “civilizing mission” in Africa. David Mengara’s, Colonial Discourse and the Jesus-fication of King Chaka: How Thomas Mofolo's Chaka Turned the Zulu Monarch into a Messiah offers a re-reading of Chaka to show that Mofolo, in fact, astutely deconstructs, and then reconstructs, King Chaka into a messianic figure whose life trajectory and destiny blasphemously mirrors that of Jesus Christ in the Bible’s New Testament. Instead of rejecting the traditional “mission interpretations” of Chaka, this book provides an interpretative inflection to paint a more nuanced picture and balanced understanding of the novel. Organized into five chapters, Mengara explores King Chaka as a historical and mythologized figure, the circumstances and controversy surrounding the publication of Thomas Mofolo’s novel, the “mission interpretation” context, the Jesus and Chaka similarities, the subversion of missionary ethos of the time, and the reassessment of Thomas Mofolo’s nationalism. This book appeals for a rediscovery of Mofolo’s work to resituate him as one of the finest authors Southern Africa has produced.
Daniel Mengara is professor of French and Francophone studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Montclair State University.