Positioned within the Research and Innovation Portfolio at Unisa, the Unisa Flame Series was sparked by the need to create a space in which to publish ground-breaking works of high merit and originality which move beyond the scope of the traditional.

Works that point to new expressive pathways, new ways of making sense, and new kinds of interactive explanation are published here. As original creative and analytical materials, books in the Series transcend the boundaries of subject field and medium, and are typically hard to package as either academic or popular. The aim of the Series is thus to open up a space at Unisa Press for such new forms of expression, which defy classical academic categories of publishing.

Within this paradigm of unlocking the future, which draws on Africa's scrambled periodization in which premodernity, modernity and postmodernity cohabit, the Series draws in works that are cuttingedge and which cater for a new generation of digital natives as well as for an existing print-based readership.

Thomas Mofolo's Chaka falls naturally within the Unisa Flame Series in terms of its scholarly and artistic merit and its multidisciplinary scope. The intercultural contexts of IsiZulu, SeSotho and Afrikaans cultures come to the fore in this creative retelling of an IsiZulu legend cast into SeSotho, and here translated into Afrikaans. This is a second, improved Afrikaans translation by a SeSotho scholar, Chris Swanepoel, which adds to the close transference from one culture to another. With the addition of a complete audiobook, the link with the oral tradition within African cultures is made. Listeners of the audiobook have the added advantage of the reading of Prof Antjie Krog, renowned poet, whose voice succeeds in subtly conveying meaning and nuance within various characters and as flowing from her in-depth knowledge of the world of Chaka.

In his Caribbean Discourse, Edouard Glissant says, “The epic of the Zulu emperor Chaka, as related by Thomas Mofolo, seems to me to exemplify an African poetics … . All the great African conquerors of the 18th and 19th century were haunted … by the approach of the white man … ”. This insight links the book translation to the current decolonisation debate, and the white man's presence in this epic.