South African Literatures: historiographies, national imaginaries, textual histories
The course looks at South African literatures through a series of thematic frames, each of which
opens a different perspective on the contested terrain of the national imaginary. It begins with the
historiography itself, using as its map of the field and guide to the arguments the introduction to The
Cambridge History of South African Literature. In the same session, we will look at fragments of
transcribed oral culture, to gain a better appreciation of the processes of cultural translation in play
in the spaces between orality and print, and of the tenuous basis for nationalizing oral performances.
We will then look at the linguistic and literary history of English settlement in South Africa, and the
discourses of unsettlement that it led to, as an English-language South African literature began to
develop, the key writers being the poet Thomas Pringle and the novelist-cum-activist Olive
Schreiner. The next phase involves tracing the development of the print culture of the mission,
where a black literary tradition begins, distinct from but organically connected with oral culture. It
is out of this tradition that a new, pan-ethnic and therefore properly national imaginary develops,
even though it takes another century for the vision to be realized in political terms. Our key writer
here will be Solomon T. Plaatje, but we will touch on others, notably the earlier, transitional figure
of Tiyo Soga. We then turn to modernism, continuing the discussion of the generation known as the
‘new Africans’ with reference to the autobiography of Esk’ia Mphahlele, but also looking at a
selection of avowedly modernist poets, notably Roy Campbell and William Plomer (while noting
some of the directions taken by modernist writing in Afrikaans). By the mid-twentieth century it
had become apparent that the agreements reached after the South African (‘Boer’) War were
disastrous for nation-building, and a catastrophe was unfolding that would mark the country’s
history forever: apartheid. Liberal responses sought religious and tragic resolutions to these
conditions while also being overwhelmed by them, and the figure of Alan Paton is representative.
By the late twentieth century, the country was awash with revolutionary discourses, and the one that
had most impact on the literary culture was Black Consciousness. We will therefore look at Soweto
Poetry, considering its genesis, key writers and performers, literary models, publishing practices
(Staffrider magazine), and international links. J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians is a
response to these developments, written in the wake of Stephen Biko’s death in police detention,
though its deeper aspiration is to create a fictive landscape more powerful than political realism. In
the final two sessions, we will look at texts that chart the unraveling of apartheid’s malevolent
webs, J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (the most studied and written-about of all South African novels),
and then post-apartheid developments, in metafiction, treatments of the city, crime writing and
science fiction. In this most recent phase a new, still unstable national imaginary is developing
which is both intensely local but also more globally connected.
In addition to the Cambridge History, some useful background texts:
Andrew van der Vlies, South African textual cultures: white, black, read all over
Andrew van der Vlies, ed. Print, Text and Book Cultures in South Africa
Peter McDonald, The Literature Police
Rita Barnard, Apartheid and Beyond: South African Writers and the Politics of Place
David Attwell, Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History
Jennifer Wenzel, Bulletproof
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (autobiography)
Lucy Graham, State of Peril: Race and Rape in South African Literature
Class Schedule
(* Denotes books to be purchased/heavier reading to be done in advance)
Week One
Historiography
Extracts from The Cambridge History of South African Literature:
David Attwell and Derek Attridge, “Introduction”
Ch. 1, Hedley Twidle, “The Bushmen’s Letters”
Ch. 3, Mbongiseni Buthelezi, “Praise, Politics, Performance”
A selection of poems and performances from oral performances will be provided.
Week Two
Settlement/Unsettlement
Selection of the poems of Thomas Pringle to be provided
Ch. 9 (CHSAL), Matthew Shum, “Writing Settlement and Empire”
*Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm
Week Three
Imagining nationhood
*Solomon T. Plaatje, Mhudi
Extracts from Tiyo Soga and others, to be provided
Ch. 14 (CHSAL), Bhekizizwe Peterson, “Black Writers and the Historical Novel”
Week Four
Modernism
*Esk’ia Mphahlele, Down Second Avenue
Extracts from poets to be provided
Optional reading: Chs. 15, 17 (CHSAL)
Week Five
Liberalism
*Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
Ch. 23 (CHSAL). Peter Blair, “The liberal tradition in fiction”
Rita Barnard, “Oprah’s Paton, or South Africa and the Globalisation of Suffering” in Van der Vlies,
ed. Print, Text and Book Cultures in South Africa
Week Six
Reading Week
Week Seven
Black Consciousness
Selection of poems, short fiction and essays to be provided, including (among others) Mongane
Serote, Oswald Mtshali, Njabulo Ndebele, Sipho Sepamla, Mafika Gwala, Mzwake Mbuli and the
contemporary poets Lebo Mashile and Lesego Rampholokeng.
Ch. 24 (CHSAL), Thengani H. Ngwenya, “Black Consciousness poetry: writing against apartheid”
Recommended reading: Stephen Biko, I Write What I Like
Week Eight
Imagining revolution
*J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
Ch. 30 (CHSAL), Stephen Clingman, “Writing the interregnum”
Week Nine
Ambiguous transition
*J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
Ch. 31 (CHSAL), Rita Barnard, “Rewriting the nation”
Lucy Graham, Ch. 5, States of Peril, “’History Speaking’: Sexual Violence and Post-apartheid
Narratives”
Week Ten
Post-apartheid contours
*Students choose one of the following for presentation/discussion:
Ivan Vladislavic, Portrait with Keys
Zoë Wicomb, Playing in the Light
Margie Orford (any of her books from the Clare Hart crime novel series)
Lauren Beukes, Zoo City