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Article: Still coloured by apartheid: New South African novels.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- December 16, 1995
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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APARTHEID pinned down the wings of South African writers, arousing their rage and defining their vision. The apartheid novel was darkly political. Stories unfolded in the dim light of persecution, humiliation and the deprivation of human dignity. It was also intensely introspective, pushing repeatedly at the meaning, and burden, of "South Africanness". Under apartheid, South Africa propelled a generation of white novelists into international view: Alan Paton, Nadine Gordimer, Andre Brink, J.M. Coetzee, Breyten Breytenbach.
South African novelists, awakening the political consciousness, straddled two worlds: the creative and the political. Mr Brink, in a lecture given ...