A History of South African Literature

A History of South African Literature PDF Author: Christopher Heywood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139455329
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
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.

A History of South African Literature

A History of South African Literature PDF Author: Christopher Heywood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139455329
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Cambridge History of South African Literature

The Cambridge History of South African Literature PDF Author: David Attwell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316175138
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1451

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Book Description
South Africa's unique history has produced literatures in many languages, in both oral and written forms, reflecting the diversity in the cultural histories and experiences of its people. The Cambridge History offers a comprehensive, multi-authored history of South African literature in all eleven official languages (and more minor ones) of the country, produced by a team of over forty international experts, including contributors from all of the major regions and language groups of South Africa. It will provide a complete portrait of South Africa's literary production, organised as a chronological history from the oral traditions existing before colonial settlement, to the post-apartheid revision of the past. In a field marked by controversy, this volume is more fully representative than any existing account of South Africa's literary history. It will make a unique contribution to Commonwealth, international and postcolonial studies and serve as a definitive reference work for decades to come.

The Columbia Guide to South African Literature in English Since 1945

The Columbia Guide to South African Literature in English Since 1945 PDF Author: Gareth Cornwell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781868886647
Category : Authors, South African
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Columbia Guide to South African literature in English since 1945 Gareth Cornwell, Dirk Klopper and Craig MacKenzie This guide captures the pulsating diversity of South African literature in English since 1945 in a single volume, with a strong range of entries, richness of detail and critical sophistication. With some 400 entries on post-1945 writers, and a particular emphasis on writers emerging in the last 20 years or so, it is both comprehensive and concise on major writers and themes, and provides key background information on major historical and cultural events. The introduction provides a context for the entries, which include emerging writers, major post-1945 writers, and detailed subject entries. An appendix on some 30 essential pre-1945 writers ensures that the literary history is presented in a balanced way. The guide concludes with an extensive bibliography including primary works, critical literature, and anthologies, as well as a detailed index. From Afrika to Zwi, with Baderoon, Coovadia, and Duiker in between - not to mention Essop, Fugard, Galgut, Head, Jensma, Kozain, La Guma, Magona, Ndebele, Oliphant, Paton, Rampolokeng, Slovo, Themba, Uys, VladislaviÃ?Â, Wicomb, Zadok . . . this is the indispensible guide to South African literature in English.

Long Walk to Freedom

Long Walk to Freedom PDF Author: Nelson Mandela
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0759521042
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
"Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand history – and then go out and change it." –President Barack Obama Nelson Mandela was one of the great moral and political leaders of his time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. After his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela was at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is still revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela told the extraordinary story of his life -- an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. The book that inspired the major motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Writing South Africa

Writing South Africa PDF Author: Derek Attridge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521597685
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
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.

A Companion to African Literatures

A Companion to African Literatures PDF Author: Olakunle George
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119058171
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Rediscover the diversity of modern African literatures with this authoritative resource edited by a leader in the field How have African literatures unfolded in their rich diversity in our modern era of decolonization, nationalisms, and extensive transnational movement of peoples? How have African writers engaged urgent questions regarding race, nation, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality? And how do African literary genres interrelate with traditional oral forms or audio-visual and digital media? A Companion to African Literatures addresses these issues and many more. Consisting of essays by distinguished scholars and emerging leaders in the field, this book offers rigorous, deeply engaging discussions of African literatures on the continent and in diaspora. It covers the four main geographical regions (East and Central Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa), presenting ample material to learn from and think with. A Companion To African Literatures is divided into five parts. The first four cover different regions of the continent, while the fifth part considers conceptual issues and newer directions of inquiry. Chapters focus on literatures in European languages officially used in Africa -- English, French, and Portuguese -- as well as homegrown African languages: Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Swahili, and Yoruba. With its lineup of lucid and authoritative analyses, readers will find in A Companion to African Literatures a distinctive, rewarding academic resource. Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students in literary studies programs with an African focus, A Companion to African Literatures will also earn a place in the libraries of teachers, researchers, and professors who wish to strengthen their background in the study of African literatures.

Black Africa

Black Africa PDF Author: V. Klima
Publisher: Springer
ISBN:
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In October 1972, our Czech-written book Literatury eerne Afriky (Literatures of Black Mrica) was published in Prague, presenting a survey of an extensive field. The publication, which was signed at that time by all three authors, differed from most contemporary introductions to the study of Mrican literatures in a threefold way: a) The authors attempted to cover various literacy and literary efforts in the area roughly delimited by Senegal in the west, Kenya in the east, Lake Chad in the north and the Cape in the south. We were well aware-even at that time-that neither technically nor linguistically would it be possible to cover all literary efforts within that area. We did try, however, to include in our survey both the literacies and literatures written in the Indo-European linguae francae (English, French, Portuguese) and in at least several of the major African languages of the area. We did not attempt an exhaustive description, but wished, rather, to show the mutual relationships which emerge, if the literatures of thii\ area, written either in the major linguae francae or in the African languages, are studied not as isolated phenomena, but as mutually complementary features. b) As two of us were linguists and one was a literary historian, we did not limit our analysis of the developing literacies and literatures to the purely cultural and literary aspects. Our intention waR to deal-whcre and if it was relevant-not only with the process of African literary development, but also with the simultaneous, complementar.

Voices of Justice and Reason

Voices of Justice and Reason PDF Author: Geoffrey V. Davis
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789042008267
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Over the past fifty years transformations of great moment have taken place in South Africa. Apartheid and the subsequent transition to a democratic, non-racial society in particular have exercised a profound effect on the practice of literature. This study traces the development of literature under apartheid, then seeks to identify the ways in which writers and theatre practitioners are now facing the challenges of a new social order. The main focus is on the work of black writers, prime among them Matsemela Manaka, Mtutuzeli Matshoba and Richard Rive, who, as politically committed members of the oppressed majority, bore witness to the "black experience" through their writing. Despite the draconian censorship system they were able to address the social problems caused by racial discrimination in all areas of life, particularly through forced removals, the migrant labour system, and the creation of the homelands. Their writing may be read both as a comprehensive record of everyday life under apartheid and as an alternative cultural history of South Africa. Particular attention is paid to theatre as a barometer of social change in South Africa. The concluding chapters consider how in the current period of transition writers and arts institutions have set about reassessing their priorities, redefining their function and seeking new aesthetic directions in taking up the challenge of imagining a new society.

The Rise of the African Novel

The Rise of the African Novel PDF Author: Mukoma Wa Ngugi
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047205368X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Engaging questions of language, identity, and reception to restore South African and diaspora writing to the African literary tradition

South African Gothic

South African Gothic PDF Author: Rebecca Duncan
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 178683247X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
The term ‘Gothic’ has rarely been brought to bear on contemporary South African fictions, appearing too fanciful for the often overtly political writing of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. As the first book-length exploration of Gothic impulses in South African literature, this volume accounts for the Gothic currents that run through South African imaginaries from the late-nineteenth century onwards. South African Gothic identifies an intensification in Gothic production that begins with the nascent decline of the apartheid state, and relates this to real anxieties that arise with the unfolding of social and political change. In the context of a South Africa unmaking and reshaping itself, Gothic emerges as a language for long-suppressed histories of violence, and for ongoing experiences at odds with utopian images of the new democracy. Its function is interrogative and ultimately creative: South African Gothic challenges narrow conceptions of the status quo to drive at alternative, less exclusionary visions.