|
|
Article: Modern South African literature in English: a reader's guide to some recent critical and bibliographic resources.(South African Literature in Transition)
- Article from:
- World Literature Today
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 University of Oklahoma. 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)
|
The beginning of modern South African literature in English may be dated through the combination of four specific publications: Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948, which inaugurated a tradition of protest in white English-speaking South African writing; Herman Charles Bosman's Mafeking Road (1947), with its use of Afrikaans storytelling traditions and its sharp, home-grown humour; Nadine Gordimer's Face to Face (1949), which marked the start of her lifelong focus on white consciousness (her later work would measure itself against Paton's liberal protest); and then, before all this, H. I. E. Dhlomo's essay "African Attitudes to the European" (1945), which not only ...