Writing South Africa: Literature, Apartheid, and Democracy, 1970–1995

Cambridge University Press, 1/22/1998
EAN 9780521592185, ISBN10: 0521592186

Hardcover, 308 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

During the final years of the apartheid era and the subsequent transition to democracy, South African literary writing caught the world's attention as never before. Writers responded to the changing political situation and its daily impact on the country's inhabitants with works that recorded or satirised state-enforced racism, explored the possibilities of resistance and rebuilding, and creatively addressed the vexed question of literature's relation to politics and ethics. Writing South Africa offers a window on the literary activity of this extraordinary period that conveys its range (going well beyond a handful of world-renowned names) and its significance for anyone interested in the impact of decolonisation and democratisation on the cultural sphere. It brings together for the first time discussions by some of the most distinguished South African novelists, poets, and dramatists, with those of leading commentators based in South Africa, Britain and North America.

Maps
Notes on contributors
South Africa 1970–95
a chronology
1. Introduction Rosemary Jolley and Derek Attridge
2. Interrogating silence
new possibilities faced by South African literature André Brink
3. I am dead
you cannot read
André Brink's On the Contrary Peter Horn
4. Endings and new beginnings
South African fiction in translation Elleke Boehmer
5. The post-apartheid sublime
rediscovering the extraordinary Graham Pechey
6. Postmodernism and black writing in South Africa Lewis Nkosi
7. Shame and identity
the case of the coloured in South Africa Zoë Wicomb
8. A man's world
South African gay writing and the state of emergency Michiel Heyns
9. The final safari
on nature, myth and the literature of the Emergency Rita Barnard
10. Interview with Miriam Tlali, interviewed by Rosemary Jolly
11. Speech and silence in the fictions of J. M. Coetzee Benita Parry
12. 'Dialogue' and 'fulfilment' in J. M. Coetzee's Age of Iron David Attwell
13. Interview with Mongone Wally Serote, interviewed by Rolf Solberg
14. Inside out
Jeremy Cronin's lyrical politics Brian Macaskill
15. Spinning out the present
narrative, gender, and the politics of South African theatre Dennis Walder
16. South African theatre in the United States
the allure of the familiar and the exotic Jeanne Colleran
Position Papers
17. Preparing ourselves for freedom Albie Sachs
18. Challenges facing theatre practitioners in the new South Africa Maishe Maponya
19. Current trends in theatre for development in South Africa Zakes Mda
20. A select bibliography of South African literary writing in English, 1970–95
Index.