"[6][7] In 2013, he became a patron of the Etisalat Prize for Literature (alongside Ama Ata Aidoo, Dele Olojede, Ellah Allfrey, Margaret Busby and Kole Omotoso).
[10] Mda's first novel, Ways of Dying (1995), takes place during the transitional years that marked South Africa's transformation into a democratic nation.
He traverses the violent urban landscape of an unnamed South African city, finding an old love amidst the internecine fighting present in the townships and squatter settlements.
In the novel, Mda continually shifts back and forth between the present day and the time of Nongqawuse to show the complex interplay between history and myth.
He dramatizes the uncertain future of a culture whose troubled relationship with the colonizing force of Empire, as well as their own civil factions, threatens to extinguish their home of Qolorha-by-Sea.
Like Peires, Mda identifies Mhlkaza, Nongqawuse's uncle and one of the key players in the event, with William Goliath, the first Xhosa person baptised in the Anglican church.
He writes from inside the exile's ambiguous fate, acknowledging that the uprooted life brings new perspectives but at the cost of a haunting fear of inner incoherence.