South African literature
Thomas Thale
South Africa has had a rich history of literary output. Until relatively recently, realism dominated the production of fiction in South Africa - perhaps authors felt an overriding concern to capture the country's turbulent history and the experiences of its people.
Fiction has been written in all of South Africa's 11 official languages - with a large body of work in Afrikaans, in particular. This overview focuses primarily on English fiction, while also touching on major developments in poetry.
The colonial adventure
The first fictional works to emerge from South Africa were produced by immigrants who often felt alienated from the South African landscape - at the same time as they were fascinated by its harsh beauty. These colonial writers were unsettled and intrigued by what they perceived as exotic elements of indigenous cultures.
Their attitude to indigenous South Africans was, at best, ambivalent, if not hostile. This is especially true of the writers of adventure-type stories, in which colonial heroes are romanticised and black South Africans' role is reduced to that of enemy or servant.
One such writer was Rider Haggard, who wrote many mythical and adventure stories, beginning in the early 1880s. His most famous book is King Solomon's Mines (1886), a bestseller in its day (and filmed several times up to the 1980s). Like subsequent novels such as Allan Quartermain and She (both 1887), its central character is the hunter Allan Quartermain, Haggard's ideal of the colonial gentleman.
These novels follow his various adventures in the "darkest Africa" of the European imagination, fixated on mysterious white queens and hidden treasures in ancient cities (built by other than black people). The point of view is that of the heroic Englishman, and indigenous peoples are portrayed either as dangerous savages or faithful servants (Quartermain's Zulu retainer eventually gives his life for his master).
Although Haggard wrote many other adventures and fantasies, it is his highly coloured African works that are still read today.
- For a critical discussion of Haggard's literary output, see
A Meditation on Lost Race Literature - For biographical details on Haggard, see Books and Writers
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