Southern African Literatures

Michael Chapman

 

Synopsis

Southern African Literatures is a major study of the work of writers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia, written at a time of crucial change in the subcontinent. It covers a wide range of work from the storytelling of stone-age Bushmen to modern writing by renowned figures such as Es'kia Mphahlele, Nadine Gordimer and Andrea Brink, encompassing traditional, popular and elite writing; literature in translation; and case studies based on topical issues. Michael Chapman argues that literary history in the southern African region is best based on a comparative method which, while respecting differences of language, race and social circumstance, seeks cultural interchange including "translations" of experience across linguistic and ethnic borders.

Review

...certainly a major breakthrough in our knowledge of the region's literature and culture. - Leon de Kock, English in Africa

Author

Michael Chapman is professor emeritus and fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban), where, until he retired, he was senior professor of English Studies.