Narrating the Environment in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness

The aim of this paper is to underline the relationship between the postcolonial narrative and environmental consciousness from the perspective of Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness. In other words, the paper stresses that the postcolonial writer, far from limiting his/her engagements to political issues, broadens their research to include the place of nature in the life of the postcolonial subject. Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness, in line with the above assertion, romanticizes the natural environment, hinges on the interconnectivity of the human and nonhuman forces in place and, consequently, becomes a critic of environmental harm. The article, thus, investigates into the meaning of ecology and, then, defines its relation with its surrounding human species. With a tilt towards postcolonial ecocriticism’s paradigm as articulated by Arturo Escobar and a host of others, the paper analyses Mda’s environmental concerns in The Heart of Redness from four standpoints, namely: nature representation, nature-culture matrix, nature conservation, and a move towards ecological holism. In a nutshell, the essay argues that nature is an active agent to the wellbeing of the postcolonial subject and should not be abused and misused. The article contends that the development of a postcolonial space is the result of the respect for, and the sustenance of the environmental forces in place.