Within Loving Memory Of The Century
Subtitle: An Autobiography
Publisher: University of Kwazulu Natal Press
Published: August 30, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 398
ISBN-13: 9781869140625
Subjects: Biography: general; History of art & design styles: from c 1900 -; Individual artists; Prints & printmaking; Biography/Autobiography; Biography & Autobiography; Biography / Autobiography; Republic of South Africa; General; Africa - South - South Africa; Personal Memoirs
First sentence: "I wrote these memories not because of their historical or politial significance, but because they signified  for me the expression of what life had meant  in moments of actual living."

Azaria Mbatha's autobiography is not art historical text, although it includes artwork. Trying to go through Mbatha's, now the artist, we hardly see Christianity and religious images as we read about from some writers in SA. The author says nothing about religion and Christianity. Mbatha has made many hundreds  wood and lion cuttings, and some of them have been  illustrating books like in the Jack Cope book,  'Tales of the Trickster boy' Cape Town.(as many artists do) Writers,esp. from SA where Mbatha is born do not tell us neither the Stations of the cross for Africa and the biggest linocut ever made was a special project which he made for Misereor in Aachen. Organisations like Misereor and Mbatha's capacity has fascinated Church members to understand the text so that  others could understand what it means. This is part of the history and the work of the artist. An international well known and represented world wide, in South Africa they still treat him collectively as student, helped by whites' skills. We know now, that Mbatha was a teacher to these students. The political dimension we see in some South African Artists were started by Azaria Mbatha.  the  This can be seen in the very early 'resistance' pieces of Azaria Mbatha, as early as in  (1962), through to overtly biblical motifs to political examples. Yet, in SA, they do not see this overtly or they do not want to see. I happened seeing Mbatha's WebSite, and I do not see this  biblical motives they write about.


¤We are waiting to hear more from Mbatha both the author, Azaria and the artist, Mbatha. This book shows us a bit of him. Nevertheless, Mbatha explained in the beginning of the book and presented  differently without Mbatha's word. What he says, for what he says we start now to read from Amazon.Nonetheless, the
 text can contribute to our understanding of artistic practice in South Africa, particularly in the early part of the twentieth century.
Description: “My small world is my home and the parent's home where they raised me.”
The book is about his boyhood and when he starts to see the bigger world with SA Presidents

He writes:
There are two wardrobes  for people and all living creatures the— small world and the big world. Azaria Mbatha writes about his small world of sisters and brothers. We meet him young with his family up to when he starts to leave his small world. He, then introducing us to South Africa, the bigger world and with conversations with all apartheid’s Presidents. Azaria brought them together to explain SA's politic. “My small world is my home and the parent's home where they raised me.” He explains in his second book "The Roaring Lion and Wedding Bells" that Autobiography 2005 deals with small world and the second book with  the bigger world.(Yet he feels he must mix them like water in water  as animals in the forest. He rejects that the LION is the king of the beasts but a bigger wave that swallow the smaller ones. He  introduces his readers to the bigger world by making the Conversations with all political leaders  in SA since 1948 even Mandela and the chairman is Tutu in the first Book. The Title of the book "Within Loving Memory of the Century" This loving refers to his family especially  his sister who died early when they were children, and parents who told him the stories of the whole century about South Africa. His father had been born 1880 and mother 1906
Notes: Mbatha writes:
"Human beings make use of tools, adapting them like intermediaries to an intended result.
My autobiography is about the smaller world that is my home and the bigger world outside my home. I could have chosen to write about  the one or the other. Instead  I mixed them together, just  as the animals are in the world like water in water. "
DELETE  INTRODUCTION! LET MBATHA WRITE HIS INTRODUCTION AND EXPERIENCE, THAT IS ALL WE WANT TO HEAR. HE IS THE AUTHOR.





I CUT  AWAY THE WHOLE INTRODUCTION  FROM THE BOOK AND I COULD READ MBATHA'S BOOK THEN.
Table of contents: title: Preface; Book One: The Long Wait for Change; Book Two: The Seeds of Democracy; Book Three: The Continuation of Life