Ways of Dying

“Toloki is a ‘professional mourner’ in a vast and violent city of the new South Africa. Day after day, he attends funerals in the townships, dressed with dignity in a threadbare suit, cape, and battered top hat, to comfort the grieving families of the victims of the city’s crime, racial hatred, and crippling poverty.
At a Christmas Day funeral for a young boy, Toloki is reunited with Noria, a woman from his village. Together they help each other to heal the past, and as their story interweaves with those of their acquaintances, this elegant short novel provides a brutal, magical, funny, and painful picture of South Africa today.”