The night-jar and Inkosazana Yasezulwini
The princess of the Heavens - Zulu
by Chris Mann
, ABOUT THE POET:
• Christopher Michael Mann was born in Port Elizabeth on 6 April 1948. He started his working life in
rural development and poverty alleviation projects, such as low-cost water-supply and sanitation,
small-scale agriculture and labour-intensive public works including secondary road and pipeline
construction.
• He obtained a BA degree at Wits University, an MA in English language and literature at the
University of Oxford and an MA in African oral literature at the School for Oriental and African
Studies in London.
• After a few years as a teacher in Swaziland, he taught at Rhodes University in the late 1970s.
From 1980 to 1992 he worked in KwaZulu-Natal at the Valley Trust medical and agricultural
project.
• In KwaZulu-Natal, Mann fell in love with aspects of Zulu culture. Owing to his quiet personality,
workers at The Valley Trust nicknamed him Zithulele, meaning ‘the quiet one’. A native English
speaker, Mann was also able to converse in Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa.
• After that he moved to Grahamstown where he developed many new poetry and language-based
projects and lectured at the university.
• He felt that poetry needed to be performed and often took tours around the country, playing his
guitar and singing his poetry to students at universities and schools.
, ABOUT THE POET:
• Following the publication of his debut poetry collection, First Poems (1979), Mann won
several awards, including the Newdigate Prize for Poetry from Oxford, the Olive
Schreiner Prize and the Thomas Pringle Award.
• Mann linked art to the foundational pillars of life, science and the worship of God
across all ages and belief systems.
• His prayerful and joyous poems offer deep reflections on apartheid times, nature, the
cosmos and the inevitability of death. He wished for his poems to nourish the reader’s
love for humanity and for the planet.
• ‘Chris lived to share the power of poetry with all, to embrace newcomers to the art,
inspiring them to read wider and think deeper,’ says his wife,
Julia Skeen. ‘Chris felt poetry was a lonely art form and often
you don’t realise the impact of your work.
• Mann died of cancer at his home on 10 March 2021.
, ABOUT THE POEM:
• The poem is rooted in the tradition of old songs and ballads,
enriched with Zulu traditions and set in a modern KwaZulu-Natal
landscape.
• The nightjar, a nocturnal bird, wakes the ‘sleeper’. The ‘sleeper’ is
then urged to give his dreams to the Zulu Princess of the Heavens.
• The princess is immortal and the maker and keeper of dreams. She
takes dreams, cleans them in rainwater and wraps them safely up in
the morning mists.
The princess of the Heavens - Zulu
by Chris Mann
, ABOUT THE POET:
• Christopher Michael Mann was born in Port Elizabeth on 6 April 1948. He started his working life in
rural development and poverty alleviation projects, such as low-cost water-supply and sanitation,
small-scale agriculture and labour-intensive public works including secondary road and pipeline
construction.
• He obtained a BA degree at Wits University, an MA in English language and literature at the
University of Oxford and an MA in African oral literature at the School for Oriental and African
Studies in London.
• After a few years as a teacher in Swaziland, he taught at Rhodes University in the late 1970s.
From 1980 to 1992 he worked in KwaZulu-Natal at the Valley Trust medical and agricultural
project.
• In KwaZulu-Natal, Mann fell in love with aspects of Zulu culture. Owing to his quiet personality,
workers at The Valley Trust nicknamed him Zithulele, meaning ‘the quiet one’. A native English
speaker, Mann was also able to converse in Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa.
• After that he moved to Grahamstown where he developed many new poetry and language-based
projects and lectured at the university.
• He felt that poetry needed to be performed and often took tours around the country, playing his
guitar and singing his poetry to students at universities and schools.
, ABOUT THE POET:
• Following the publication of his debut poetry collection, First Poems (1979), Mann won
several awards, including the Newdigate Prize for Poetry from Oxford, the Olive
Schreiner Prize and the Thomas Pringle Award.
• Mann linked art to the foundational pillars of life, science and the worship of God
across all ages and belief systems.
• His prayerful and joyous poems offer deep reflections on apartheid times, nature, the
cosmos and the inevitability of death. He wished for his poems to nourish the reader’s
love for humanity and for the planet.
• ‘Chris lived to share the power of poetry with all, to embrace newcomers to the art,
inspiring them to read wider and think deeper,’ says his wife,
Julia Skeen. ‘Chris felt poetry was a lonely art form and often
you don’t realise the impact of your work.
• Mann died of cancer at his home on 10 March 2021.
, ABOUT THE POEM:
• The poem is rooted in the tradition of old songs and ballads,
enriched with Zulu traditions and set in a modern KwaZulu-Natal
landscape.
• The nightjar, a nocturnal bird, wakes the ‘sleeper’. The ‘sleeper’ is
then urged to give his dreams to the Zulu Princess of the Heavens.
• The princess is immortal and the maker and keeper of dreams. She
takes dreams, cleans them in rainwater and wraps them safely up in
the morning mists.
