Ualalapi (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa (also spelled as Ungulani ba ka Khosa) is a Mozambican writer. He published two books: the novel Ualalapi in 1987 (it won the Grand Prize of Mozambican Fiction in 1990) and a collection of short stories Orgy of the Deranged in 1990. He is almost finished with his next work The Kingdom of the Vultures. Ualalapi is the name of a warrior nguni who is destined to kill Mafemane, brother of Mudungazi (later called Ngungunhane). This fictional story, a collection of six loosely related episodes, describes the life of hosi (king, emperor, in the Tsonga language) Ngungunhane, celebrity of the resistance to the Portuguese at the end of nineteenth century. Ualalapi's telling of the story creates an epic ambience, however, an oral tradition describes the emperor as a tyrant rather than a hero. The author tracks his rise to power over his murdered rivals and his eventual decline. The story is a disguised warning against tyranny.