A History of South African Literature
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reissue, 8/12/2010
EAN 9780521153782, ISBN10: 0521153786
Paperback, 314 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
This book is a critical study of South African literature, from colonial and pre-colonial times onwards. Christopher Heywood discusses selected poems, plays and prose works in five literary traditions: Khoisan, Nguni-Sotho, Afrikaans, English, and Indian. The discussion includes over 100 authors and selected works, including poets from Mqhayi, Marais and Campbell to Butler, Serote and Krog, theatre writers from Boniface and Black to Fugard and Mda, and fiction writers from Schreiner and Plaatje to Bessie Head and the Nobel prizewinners Gordimer and Coetzee. The literature is explored in the setting of crises leading to the formation of modern South Africa, notably the rise and fall of the Emperor Shaka's Zulu kingdom, the Colenso crisis, industrialisation, the colonial and post-colonial wars of 1899, 1914, and 1939, and the dissolution of apartheid society. In Heywood's study, South African literature emerges as among the great literatures of the modern world.
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chronology
List of abbreviations
Literary map of South Africa
1. Introduction
communities and rites of passage
Part I. Towards Sharpeville
2. Poetry before Sharpeville
singing, protest, writing
3. Theatre before Fugard
4. Prose classics
Schreiner to Mofolo
5. Fiction of resistance and protest
Bosman to Mphahlele
Part II. Transformation
6. Poetry after Sharpeville
7. Theatre
Fugard to Mda
8. Novels and stories after 1960
Notes
Glossary
Select bibliography
Index.