riddle@im4u.UUCP (08/23/85)
South Africa has produced some of the finiest writers in the English
language anywhere in the past few decades. Perhaps curiously, perhaps not,
the ones I have heard of are without exception strong social critics with a
deep insight into South Africa's peculiar collective evils, and yet they are
also able to transcend that and write beautifully about their characters as
individuals.
There is Alan Paton, whose "Cry the Beloved Country" and "Too Late the
Phalarope" reminded me strongly of Faulkner when I read them (and in my
opinion that's a very favorable resemblance!).
There's Doris Lessing, who may or may not strictly be considered South
African -- now she resides in Britain and I suppose is identified as a
British author, but her early work was deeply rooted in "Southern
Rhodesia." Her "African Stories" are amazing.
There's Nadine Gordimer, whom one can't resist but compare with Doris
Lessing. Like Lessing she writes wonderfully rich short stories and is
especially gifted at writing about women, but hers is a younger, slightly
more "modern" voice. I just read her very timely novel "July's People,"
about a liberal white Johannesburg family forced to flee a (hypothetical)
revolution and hide out in the rural village of their household servant.
Gordimer's ability to write simultaneously about the personal and the
political, exposing their inconsistencies without choosing one over the
other, is something more writers need to learn.
And there's (forgot his first name) Coetzee, by whom I have only read the
novel "In the Heart of the Country," a haunting book about madness and
spinsterhood in the South African "outback".
You'll note that the writers I've listed above are all white. I know that
there are lots of black writers in South Africa as well, but I haven't read
anything by them. Can anyone out there make any recommendations? Or are
there any important white writers I've missed?
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech}!ut-sally!riddle riddle@ut-sally.UUCP
--- riddle@ut-sally.ARPA, riddle%zotz@ut-sally, riddle%im4u@ut-sallywmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (08/24/85)
James S. McClure writes mystery novels and other fiction set in South
Africa. I normally am not too interested in mysteries, but I have
enjoyed reading this particular series of books. It gives an interesting
and different view of SA society, sort of from the "underneath", as it
were. I do not know if McClure is a native South African or an immigrant
or maybe just someone who visit{ed,s} there.
Will