Ways of Dying

Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda is a story that really only covers a small timeline, I believe it begins on Christmas and ends with New Year's Eve, however, during this relatively short span of time the main character, Toloki, undergoes very big changes in his life. This short timeline is interesting to me because it is a similar trait found in two previous novels we have read, those being Untouchable, by Mulk Raj Anand, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In Anand's work, the narrator tells the story of a single day in the life of Bakha, similarily Marquez attempts to reconstruct the murder of Santiago Nasar by piecing together stories of the day he was murdered in hopes of unraveling or retelling the true story of the murder. I think that is very interesting that the authors are able to reveal so much about the history and struggles taking place in the settings of these stories through the tiny time frame that they isolate to tell their story in.