Literature

South africa

South African literature 

        The South African literature has three important influences in its history .The oral tradition, the Anglican influences and the occidental culture.

The black south African people has a long and rich oral tradition. The oral tradition goes back many centuries ago and has been passed down from generation to generation. At its inception, the South African literature was focused on the issues of the "motherland" and the political struggles. However, gradually began to rise to a more objective literary expression. With the passage of time the South African literature was covering topics from every day, such as family life, religion, beliefs and more. This was because in the oral tradition, a strong proportion of authors and storytellers were women. This has resulted today in the existence of a significant proportion of women among the writers.

        South African literature has a varied history. Many black authors were educated by Anglican missionaries and most of them wrote their works in both English and Afrikaans. One of the earliest known novels written by a black writer in this language is Mhudi Sol Plaatje (1930). The peculiarities of the South African society and its political history have allowed writers whose themes appear beyond apartheid, interest in the lives of people in today's society.

         Some writers, when analyzing the South African creative writing, they think that is marked by an estate or influence of Western culture. For example, South African fiction has been enriched by contact with the narrative of the northern countries and indigenous African poetry in East Africa or the Indian Ocean coast, have benefited from the Islamic tradition.

       The traditional literary forms or sources that have been influenced by the South African contemporary literary creation are mainly: the proverbs, stories, fables and historical narrative. Poetry, oral or written, in native language or in a foreign language, continues to represent the most vivid literary form in South Africa. The novel, though distantly related to the story and other narrative forms, can be regarded as a literary form imported. A feature of the South African and African storytelling in general is the absence of the novel or exaltation of heroic national figures. This absence seems strange, after spending many countries by wars of independence.

           

           South African literature in English begins with the publication in 1883 of The Story of an African Farm (History of African hacienda), Olive Schreiner. Among later writers whose themes were the problems of the South African land and people, and in particular the political, highlight Laurens van der Post, Alan Paton, novelist and short story writer, Nadine Gordimer and John Michael Coetzee, winners Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991 and 2003, respectively, and the playwright Athol Fugard. Poetry is represented by the likes of Roy Campbell, of FT Prince and Roy McNab

 Contemporary South African Literature

          The traditional literary forms or sources that have influenced contemporary literary creation are mainly: the proverbs, stories, fables and historical narrative. Oral or written poetry in local language or in a foreign language continues to represent the most vivid literary form in South Africa and covers various subjects: from traditional medicine, to comment on the law or the latest, to marital problems or the rate of inflation. The novel - even distantly related to the story and other narrative forms - can be considered as an important literary form. One feature of the South African narrative, despite its troubled past.

         It is important to mention in the literature to contemporary South African writers Nadine Gordimer (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991, JM Coetzee (Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003), Zakes Mda and Mongane Wally Serote. JOHANNESBURG, Oct 2 (IPS) - The South African novelist John Maxwell Coetzee, Nobel Prize winner for literature, has painted a bleak landscape of his country, both the apartheid era and the aftermath. His work, characterized by austerity, is both universal and South African. Has addressed both the apartheid (racial segregation that prevailed institutionalized in this country until 1994) as the post through the complex and fascinating look of the protagonists of his novels. But Coetzee also addressed universal themes in the collapse and reconstruction of their characters and the inspection and introspection of the human soul walking his novels.

"I am the herald of a community or anything ¨. I'm someone who insinuates liberty (as any prisoner in chains) and constructs representations of people scurry from their chains and turning their faces to the light, "he once said. Damon Galgut novelists, Andre Brink and Achmat Dangor also had been candidates for international awards. Galgut's novel "The Good Doctor" ("The Good Doctor") is a finalist for the Booker Price, while Brink and Dangor works could be distinguished in Britain.

         

          Coetzee won the Booker Price twice - in 1983 and 1999 - but the Nobel, worth $ 1.3 million, does not refer to any particular work but to the recipient's contribution to world literature. Born in Cape Town, Coetzee, who is white, teaches at the American University of Chicago. Horace Engdahl, the Swedish Academy of Letters. The campaign sought to highlight the country's cultural heritage, promote the country and encourage consumers to buy domestic products. With the production and sales of South African books in a very low point, the prize for

Coetzee is an encouragement to the publishing market. Van Graan credited Coetzee's literary longevity to the fact that the writer continues to grow even if many years.

          The critic draws a clear difference in style between his first and most famous book, "Waiting for the Barbarians" ("Waiting for the Barbarians"), which takes readers to the dark heart of apartheid, and "Disgrace" ("Disgrace" ), for which he won his second Booker Price.

As a chronicler of those "scurry from their chains and turning their faces to the light," Coetzee plot in "Disgrace" post-apartheid landscape as bleak as that painted before the apartheid. "This is the first book of Coetzee that explicitly addresses the post-apartheid South Africa, and the landscape that portrays not leave anyone comfortable, regardless of race, nationality or ideology," said the critic Andrew O'Hehir. This is the second time a South African writer to win the Nobel Prize, after it obtained in 1991 Nadine Gordimer. The other South African Nobel Prize winners are South Africans Max Theiler (Medicine, 1951), Albert John Lutuli (Peace, 1969), Alan Cormack (Medicine, 1979), Desmond Tutu (1984, Peace) Fredrik De Klerk and Nelson Mandela (Peace, 1993) and Sydney Brenner (Medicine, 2002). (FIN/2003)