South African novel - The African Mirror

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Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

The case of the acclaimed South African novel that ‘borrows’ from Samuel Beckett

LITERATURE

RICK DE VILLIERS, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, University of the Free State PEREANT qui ante nos nostra dixerunt: may those who utter our words before us perish. This lighthearted Latin curse speaks a truth many readers and writers have felt: to have our thoughts articulated by someone else. Coenraad de Buys is unruffled by such a possibility. He is the antihero of Willem Anker’s award winning 2014 Afrikaans novel, Buys. Vagabond philosopher that he is, Buys reflects on the nature of memories. Their substance is flaky; their origin sometimes obscure. You might glimpse them in a glass darkly or…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

In its portrayal of women, the classic South African novel Mhudi was ahead of its time

LITERATURE

SOLOMON T. Plaatje was born in 1876 and was one of the founding members of South Africa’s current ruling party, the African National Congress. JENNY BOZENA DU PREEZ, Nelson Mandela University He was a politician, intellectual, journalist and author of the seminal Native Life in South Africa. He was also a writer of fiction. His first and only novel, Mhudi, was written in 1920 and published a decade later. Despite being the first novel by a Black South African in English, it had little impact on the literary landscape of the country at the time. However, over the past century,…