“Phila, one of the two central characters of Mputhumi Ntabeni’s exceptional novel The Broken River Tent, is a 40-year-old, disaffected South African…Early in the story Phila is travelling on a bus in Port Elizabeth when there appears on the seat beside him the second central character in the story…This is Maqoma (1798-1873) the most eminent of the 19th century Xhosa leaders.”
Commentary