The Wonderful Surgeon

A collection of poems by Charles Mloka. A culmination of innovative thought, borne out of a fertile imagination, driven and motivated by a careful analysis of African life and a great concern for African literature. The collection presents an oblique way of looking at life. Mloka’s poems engage contemporary African experience through the slant rhyme of metaphor rather than the straightforward declaration of political verse, preferring questions and images to slogans. The title poem, drawing on the image of the surgeon, suggests the poet’s work as a form of careful cutting, diagnosis, and repair. For readers of contemporary African poetry in English, students of Tanzanian literature, and those interested in how imaginative writing complements more explicitly political traditions such as those gathered in Summons (Row 219). A short collection that rewards slow reading.