South Africa and Zimbabwe

Introduction: South Africa

2017 was a very good year for poetry, with impressive debuts, strong collections from established authors, a new publisher, an intriguing sponsor of poetry and a book achieving record-breaking sales.

The big book of the year was Koleka Putuma’s debut Collective Amnesia, attracting critical attention and extraordinary sales. In a country where most novels sell less than a thousand copies and poetry books a few hundred if they are lucky, Collective Amnesia has sold over 2000 copies, going into several new print runs. The collection has already been prescribed at several South African universities.

Len Verwey had a chapbook appear as part of the boxed set Seven New Generation African Poets in 2014. He follows up that initial promise with a strong full-length collection In a Language That You Know. Francine Simon, Katleho Kano Shoro and Michèle Betty have particularly strong debuts. Betty and Afrikaans poet Joan Hambidge have started a new publishing house, Dryad Press, and their first three offerings mark them as a publisher to watch. In addition to Betty’s collection they published A Private Audience, the second collection from Beverly Rycroft, and an anthology Unearthed, which draws from English and Afrikaans collections published in 2016 to showcase 11 poets. English poets included are Isobel Dixon, Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese, Colleen Crawford Cousins, Stephen Simons, Marike Beyers and Helen Moffett. This interesting approach enables readers to sample the various collections and it is hoped that this will become an annual publication. Two of the poets selected went on to win awards: Helen Moffett received a SALA Award for Poetry for her collection Prunings and Sindiswa Busuku-Mathese won the Ingrid Jonker Prize for Poetry for Loud and Yellow Laughter.

The multilingual nature of South Africa is particularly prominent in poetry where many of the works include poems in different languages. The Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award encourages entries in all 11 official languages. It was won by Moses Seletisha for a Sesotho poem, with Afrikaans poet Rene Bohnen second and Jim Pascual Agustin third, the highest-ranking poems in English. Now in its 7^th year, the anthology brings together a mix of established poets and new voices. To Breathe into Another Voice edited by Myesha Jenkins is a substantial anthology bringing together poems inspired by jazz.

This Moment’s Marrow is the latest of the annual anthologies brought out by the informal Ecca Poets group, which includes Brian Walters, Norman Morrissey, Silke Heiss, Cathal Lagan, with Jacques Coetzee as a guest poet. Coetzee has his debut collection in a collaborative project with Barbara Fairhead, her third collection. The Love Sheet contains alternating poems from each writer, setting up interesting resonances between the poetic voices. Current Haiku is a slim collection containing haiku by Pat Louw, Marí Peté and Pieter Scholtz. Anne Schuster and Shirley Pendlebury have a collaborative collection of renga Summer Came Late. Schuster also has a solo collection Even as It Thunders. Sadly, she died during the publication process, without having seen the final product. Norman Morrissey was another poet who died in 2017. His final book was A Shell Held to the Ear, a slim collection in collaboration with Silke Heiss.

Keorapetse Kgositsile who died in early 2018, brought out his final collection, Homesoil in My Blood, a substantial book bringing together three collections focused on the liberation struggle, women and the influence of musicians. Dan Wylie, Harry Owen and Mike Cope all have selected poems drawn from previous collections as well as some new works. Noteworthy new collections came from established poets Jim Pascual Agustin, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Angifi Dladla, Alan Finlay, Moira Lovell, Chris Mann, Beverly Rycroft, Kelwyn Sole, Karin Schimke and Robin Winckel-Mellish. Poetry books seldom get reprinted but Mkhosazana Xaba’s debut collection, These Hands, first published in 2005 by Timbila, has been reissued by Modjaji, putting this long out-of-print book back into the hands of readers.

Funeral company AVBOB became an unlikely sponsor of poetry when they launched the AVBOB Poetry Project calling for poems on the themes of death, life, birth and hope. Over 20 000 poems were submitted in all 11 official languages. Some 3000 of the poems were published on a website. AVBOB undertook the revolutionary step of paying poets for the use of their work and the contest generated a lot of interest, bringing poetry to the forefront on social media. AVBOB was nominated for a BASA Award for innovative sponsorship of the arts.

While many collections include multiple languages, most of the poetry collections in translation are translated by the authors. Antjie Krog won the Hertzog Prize in 1989 for her Afrikaans collection Lady Anne. Lady Anne Barnard live at the Cape of Good Hope from 1797-1802 and her letters and diaries give insight into daily life at that time. Krog draws on the historical texts for her poems as well as inserting the voice of “the poet”. Crows in the Coral Tree is the first collection in English by Heidi Papadopoulos. Mazisi Kunene’s epic poem Emperor Shaka the Great was written in isiZulu but was only published in English in 1979. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death, the English edition was reissued along with the isiZulu text. Jeff Opland received the Order of Ikhamanga and was nominated for a SALA award for his work on translating and editing early isiXhosa poetry. The latest in the series of scholarly editions published by UKZN Press is Occasional Poems (1900-1943) by S.E.K. Mqhayi, edited and translated by Opland and Peter Mtuze.

Mama Mudu’s Children by Masitha Hoeane contains the text of the play in both English and Sesotho. The author notes that it is not a simple translation but a recreation in a different linguistic and cultural context. Allan Kolski Horwitz is best known as a poet, but the publication of Collected Plays reminds us that he is also a playwright. Paul Slabolepszy has not produced a new play since 2009. His 2016 return to the stage, Suddenly the Storm, did not disappoint. It received critical acclaim including nominations for six Naledi theatre awards, winning the award for Best New South African Script. Lara Foot’s new play Fishers of Hope Tawaret also attracted high praise when it appeared in 2016. The play is set in a small fishing village in Kenya, the first time Foot has moved away from a South African theme. It is also the only published play not set in South Africa, unlike the fiction where several authors locate their novels in America or Europe.

An impressive number of new and young playwrights saw their work in print. TIP-Ex by Lauren Hannie was the winner of the best script at the Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival in 2016. It focuses on sexual identity and corrective rape. Philip Rademeyer and Penelope Youngleson’s Siembamba explores the relationships between a black woman and the white child she helped raise as a domestic worker. The Fall is another collaborative play, workshopped and written by the cast, which includes Ameera Conrad. The play follows seven activists during the student protests of 2015 and 2016. Conrad has also published her own play, Reparations, a dark satire set in 2024. It forms the first in Junket’s new Time Sequence series of plays looking at the future. The second is Kudu, by Lwanda Sindaphi, which gives an interesting take on the land restitution issue by having a group of San/Coloured descendants in 2040 claiming their ancestral land from the amaXhosa now living there.

Fiction also features strong new voices, with impressive debut novels from Tammy Baikie, Barbara Boswell, Zinzi Clemmons, Qarnita Loxton, Marcus Low, Thabiso Mofokeng, Chwayita Ngamlana, Leonhard Praeg and Neil Sonnekus. The number of noteworthy novels is reflected in the literary awards, where few books made it onto more than one list.

The Sunday Times Alan Ronge Prize for Fiction was awarded to A Thousand Tales of Johannesburg by Harry Kalmer, with Softness of the Lime by Maxine Case, The Third Reel by S.J. Naude, Bird-Monk Seding by Lesego Rampolokeng and The Camp Whore by Francois Smith shortlisted. The Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Fiction went to The Life of Worm and Other Misconceptions by Ken Barris, with I Am Pandarus by Michiel Heyns and Being Kari by Qarnita Loxton shortlisted. Loxton was also nominated for the 9mobile Prize for Literature (formerly the Etisalat Prize). While the award is for debut African fiction, once again South African authors dominated, with four out of the nine authors on the longlist: Like It Matters by David Cornwell, The Printmaker by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen (both published in 2016) and Asylum by Marcus Low.

Zinzi Clemmons’ debut novel What We Lose has attracted a lot of attention in America, where it is set and where Clemmons now lives. Clemmons was selected for the US National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honour and the novel was shortlisted for the California Book Awards, for Fiction and First Fiction, the Aspen Words Literary Prize and NBCC John Leonard First Book Prize and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. The story of a young African-American woman dealing with the death of her South African mother is part coming-of-age and part meditation on loss and identity. The Architecture of Loss by Z.P. Dala is another highly-praised novel exploring loss, memory and reconciliation. In this case, a Cape Town architect travels to rural Zululand to see her dying mother, an anti-apartheid activist who had sent her away as a child. The novel explores the complexity of family relations as well as the impact of the anti-apartheid struggle. Dikeledi by Achmat Dangor focuses on several generations of women in one family, showing ordinary life under apartheid. Barbara Boswell’s debut Grace shows the impact of violence, trauma and loss on a young woman growing up in the 1980s. Boswell and Dangor are among several authors who set their novels in the past.

Maxine Case’s novel Softness of the Lime was selected by the Walter Scott Prize Academy as one of its 20 recommended historical novels of 2017. Based on a family story, the novel is set in the Dutch controlled Cape of Good Hope of the 18^th century and focuses on the relationship between a wealthy Dutch man and a slave woman. The Camp Whore by Francois Smith is also inspired by a true story, in this case, of an Afrikaans woman raped by a British officer in a concentration camp during the South African War: she meets her abuser while working as a nurse during World War I.

The biggest naval tragedy in South Africa occurred during World War I, when the troopship Mendi was sunk, drowning over 600 black South Africans. While South Africa only allowed white soldiers, men of all races volunteered to serve in the South African Native Labour Corps. In 2017, the sinking of the Mendi was commemorated in exhibitions, conferences, and the publication of two novels, Men of the Mendi by Brenda Shepherd and Dancing the Death Drill by Fred Khumalo.

A Handful of Earth by Simon Bruinders is set during and after World War II and focuses on a coloured man who volunteered to serve and his sense of betrayal in the years afterwards when instead of the land promised he and his community faced increased oppression as apartheid was implemented. Barbara Mutch also explores race relations within the context of the war in The Girl From Simon’s Bay focusing on the relationship between a young woman and a British soldier. The Crooked Path by Irma Joubert is a coming-of-age story and deals with delayed love, loss and reconciliation in the post-war years.

A Thousand Tales of Johannesburg by Harry Kalmer spans more than a hundred years of life in Johannesburg, from the concentration camps of the South African War to the xenophobic violence of 2008. Kalmer has written several plays and works of Afrikaans fiction but this is his first novel in English. S.J. Naudé follows up his critically acclaimed collection of short stories with a novel The Third Reel, published simultaneously in Afrikaans and English. The novel focuses on a young man fleeing conscription to study film in England where he becomes obsessed with finding the missing reels of a German film from the 1930s as well as his German artist lover who has vanished in Berlin. Gerald Kraak’s posthumous novel Shadow Play also features a young man going into exile in Europe to avoid conscription. His comfortable new life is challenged when he is drawn back into anti-apartheid activism. Set in the 1970s and early 1980s, the novel explores exile, identity and sexuality. Kraak died in 2014, leaving an unfinished draft which was completed by Alison Lowry. The novel was intended to be the second in a trilogy, following Ice in the Lungs.

Brent Meersman finishes his trilogy begun with Reports before Daybreak and Five Lives at Noon. Sunset Claws is an epic novel of the struggles against apartheid and the turbulent birth of a nation, following several characters whose lives intersect over the years, moving from Cape Town in the 1980s to KwaZulu-Natal’s political violence of the early 1990s to post-apartheid Johannesburg. The two earlier novels are included in the publication. New Times by Rehana Rossouw follows a journalist covering the early years of democracy while trying to balance different aspects of her identity – “Ali” the journalist but “Aliyah” to her Muslim family. Being Kari by Qanita Loxton also explores a woman moving between different identities. When her husband cheats on her and her grandmother dies, Kari returns to her estranged Muslim family who know her as “Karima”. Son by Neil Sonnekus is an impressive debut set in the 2000s and explores trauma, white masculinity and family relationships.

The Last Stop by Thabiso Mofokeng deals with contemporary issues of taxi violence, xenophobia and police brutality while incorporating elements of magical realism. Bird-Monk Seding by Lesego Rampolokeng moves between contemporary life in the small township, Seding, in the Groot Marico, and the narrator’s experiences growing up in Soweto of the 1970s and 1980s. Experimental in form, the novel is filled with references to poetry and jazz and is one of several works incorporating intertextual references.

Fiona Melrose’s second novel Johannesburg, set on a single day, 6 December 2013, against the backdrop of Nelson Mandela’s death, follows the style, structure and themes of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. A large cast of characters intersect with an artist who has reluctantly returned to Johannesburg to prepare for the 90^th birthday party of her mother. Leonhard Praeg’s highly praised debut Imitation references Milan Kundera’s Immortality in a contemporary South African setting and has been praised for its melding of philosophy and fiction. I Am Pandarus by Michiel Heyns is a reworking of the story of Troilus and Cressida, drawing on the versions by Chaucer and Shakespeare. The narrator meets a stranger in a gay bar, who turns out to be Pandarus, intent on giving his own side of the story. The Unofficial Odyssey by Jane Fox draws on Homer, Aeschylus and Euripides to give a tongue-in-cheek novel of the Trojan War, focused on Penelope, Circe, Sappho and Cassandra.

Hushed by Joanne Macgregor reworks “The Little Mermaid” as a contemporary youth novel where the “prince” is an American actor filming in Cape Town and the “mermaid” is an environmental activist who finds herself working as a PA for her film crush after she saves him from drowning. Macgregor has also published The Law of Tall Girls, a poignant and funny teenage romance.

Lesley Beake’s new novel Hap is somewhat darker in tone, featuring a teenage girl recovering from a traumatic experience who is sent to stay with her father on an archaeological dig on a remote Western Cape beach. When a skeleton is discovered she becomes linked to the young woman who lived on the beach centuries before. Powerful and poetic, the novel leaves it open ended whether there was a real time shift connection or an imaginative way of escaping the present. Hap was nominated for the MER Prize for Youth Literature (not yet awarded) and won Gold in the Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature. The Silver Award went to Jayne Bauling for her dystopian New Keepers set in post-apocalyptic Johannesburg. A young man has strange visions and leads a group into the Wilderness outside of the city. Helen Brain blends fantasy elements with a dystopic Cape Town setting in The Rising Tide, the second volume in the Elevation trilogy.

More contemporary settings come from Sello Mahapeletsa, whose Playing with Fire is the latest in the Harmony High series of novels written by different authors but set in the same township high school. Jayne Bauling’s Game Plan is the third in her Soccer Season series. #Can’tStopReading and #OhMyWord contain fiction, poetry, essays and blog posts by established and emerging authors. All the pieces were previously published by FunDza on their mobi platform, which enables teenagers to read on their phones as well as discuss the books and interact with their authors.

Pride and Prejudice is another multigeneric anthology, containing fiction, poetry, journalism, academic writing and photography on the theme of gender, sexuality and social justice. The volume is the first of a planned annual anthology and award in honour of author and social activist Gerald Kraak who died in 2014. The award was open to all in Africa but a substantial number of the writers were South African. The award went to Kenyan writer Farah Ahamed. Queer Africa 2 is the second in a series of anthologies exploring gender and sexuality.

The Short Story Day Africa Award, which was won by Sibongile Fisher, sees seven of the 22 shortlisted stories by South African authors. The stories appear in Migrations. Trade Secrets contains the best stories submitted for the Short.Sharp.Stories Award, which was won by Mishka Hoosen. The Short Story Is Dead, Long Live the Short Story is another anthology linked to a competition and including writers from across Africa. Christine Coates was awarded second prize. While it is good to see so many anthologies of new work, Recognition edited by David Medalie brings together a cross section of classic and contemporary stories from early 20^th-century writers such as Pauline Smith and H.I.E. Dhlomo to new voices such as Mary Watson and Makhosazana Xaba.

Nick Mulgrew followed his award-winning debut with a new collection of stories, The First Law of Sadness. Ken Barris won the Herman Charles Bosman Award for his latest collection The Life of Worm. Other noteworthy collections include Kobus Moolman’s The Swimming Lesson and Andrew Salomon’s Dark Shenanigans.

Salomon has also published a dark fantasy thriller, The Equilibrist, one of several works of speculative fiction. Tammy Baikie won the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award for an unpublished novel, which is now published as Selling LipService. It is an intriguing novel set in a near future where all speech is commercialised. People lose the ability to speak without a LipService patch, which only allows them to use scripted phrases designed to promote the corporate sponsor of the patch. Asylum by Marcus Low is a highly praised dystopian novel. To control a highly contagious lung disease the infected are locked up in quarantine facilities. The story is told through the journals of a patient, interspersed by marginalia and academic commentary on the journals by official at the Museum of the Plague in 2026. Not only is the narrator unreliable, the book as a whole reflects on the nature of truth, fiction and storytelling. Deon Meyer also invokes a future illness in Fever, although in this case it is less about the illness as such and more about the aftermath of a plague which has killed most of the people in the world. The novel follows a group of survivors as they attempt to rebuild a community.

Sarah Lotz has published two books: The White Road which blends suspense and horror on Mount Everest, and the novella Body in the Woods, a paranormal thriller set in England. Lotz continues to attract high praise, drawing comparisons to Dean Koontz and Stephen King. How We Found You by J.T. Lawrence is the second book the When Tomorrow Calls series and is a dark psychological thriller set in near future South Africa while Paul Crilley’s Clockwork City is the second in his Delphic Division series featuring a detective investigating supernatural crimes.

Crime fiction and thrillers continue to be popular, with novels from Francois Bloemhof, Fiona Snyckers (first released online in weekly installments), Michael Stanley, Martin Steyn (who won the ATKV Prize for Suspense for the Afrikaans version) and Jassy Mackenzie. In addition to her own novel Mackenzie collaborated with James Patterson on the novella Private Johannesburg. Wilbur Smith has followed Patterson’s example and is now co-writing, bringing out two historical thrillers, The Tiger’s Prey with Tom Harper and War Cry with David Churchill, both episodes in the Courtney family story.

While much of the literature is dark, Beyond the River by Mohale Mashigo is a heart-warming novelisation of the film of the same title from a script by Craig Freimond and Robbie Thorpe. Based on a true story, it explores the growing friendship between two men from different worlds when they work together to take part in the Dusi Canoe Race. Unpresidented by Paige Nick is irreverent, funny, and almost prescient. Set in 2020, it follows disgraced former president Muza who has been released from prison on medical parole (for an ingrown toenail) and his plans to get back to being Number One. Chapters alternate between Muza, his two remaining wives, his long-suffering parole officer and the hapless journalist who has to ghostwrite his memoirs. Delilah Now Trending by Pamela Powers is a darkly humorous look at school life, the children’s and their parents’ and touches on themes of bullying, social media and the challenges of single mothers.

The Park by Gail Schimmel explores female friendships and motherhood. Accident by Dawn Garisch also explores motherhood from the perspective of the mother of a young man, a performance artist whose performances are putting him at risk of serious injury. It explores the responses to destructive behavior and the complexities of the mother-son relationship.

The Blessed Girl by Angela Makholwa and Bare: The Blesser’s Game by Jackie Phamotse explore the phenomenon of “blessers”, older men who give financial support to young women in exchange for sexual favours. If I Stay Right Here by Chwayita Ngamlana explores a passionate and abusive relationship between two women.

A Gap in the Hedge by Johan Vlok Louw is a dark story of a man with amnesia who wakes up in a stark mining town. As glimpses of his dark past surface he strikes up a friendship with the young boy in the house next door, but the truth of his connection to the boy is more than just coincidence. Ingrid Winterbach’s award-winning Afrikaans novel is now available in English as The Shallows. As with much of Winterbach’s work it is difficult to summarise, with innovative storytelling, parallel narratives, interconnecting lives, a book within a book and meditations on the role and place of art in society.

You Lost Me by Marita van der Vyver follows a group of South Africans in Paris in the context of the 2015 terrorist attacks. The focus is on a disillusioned writer, his estranged son and a young au pair. It is one of several novels set in distant locations, many having little to no South African connection. Dalila by Jason Donald is set in England and follows a Kenyan asylum seeker. Steven Boykey Sidley’s Free Association follows an American whose podcasts about his life have gone viral. The novel switches between transcriptions of the podcasts and a narrative of Lurie’s life showing the increasing embellishment taking place. Lynn Freed’s Last Laugh focuses on three women in their 60s spending a year on a Greek island and explores aging, friendship, family and romance as the self-proclaimed “old bags” discover that life will not let them rest in peace.

Author Alex la Guma travelled to the Soviet Union in the 1970s. His travel account, A Soviet Journey, published in 1978, was an intriguing insight into the Soviet Union and his experiences there as a political exile. It has now been reissued in an annotated edition. Steve Biko’s now classic collection of essays I Write What I Like was reissued to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his death.

King Kong, the iconic 1959 South African musical about the life of boxer Ezekiel Dhlamini, was revived for the stage. Pat Williams, the lyricist, has published a memoir King Kong: Our Knot of Time and Music giving a personal look at the play’s development and reception. A number of literary memoirs were published. John W. Fredericks wrote an autobiographical film Noem My Skollie (“Name Me Skollie”) which appeared in 2016. Skollie is an expanded version, a moving memoir of life on the Cape Flats and how storytelling helped the author survive prison and gang life. Queen of the Free State is poet Jennifer Friedman’s memoir of growing up in a small Free State town in the 1950s and 1960s. Novelist Sheila Kohler also published a memoir of growing up in 1950s South Africa. Once We Were Sisters focuses primarily on Kohler’s relationship with her sister and her grief and anger over her untimely death. The Fifth Mrs Brink by Karina Szczurek is a moving memoir of love, loss and grief, written by the widow of novelist Andre Brink. Szczurek, herself a novelist, recounts their ten-year marriage and her devastating grief after Brink’s death in 2015.

The shortlist for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Prize for Non-Fiction included the highly-praised memoirs Always Another Country by Sisonke Msimang and Colour Me Yellow by Thuli Nhlapo. Sisonke writes of her childhood in exile in Zambia and Kenya and her return to South Africa in the 1990s. In Colour Me Yellow Nhlapo writes of her difficult childhood, rejected and neglected by her family and her quest for truth and identity. Photographers Obie Oberholzer and Jurgen Schadeberg also have memoirs.

Footnotes for the Panther: Conversations between William Kentridge and Denis Hirson contains a series of conversations between artist Kentridge and writer Hirson, which explore and debate issues around the creation of art, focussing on the themes and images in Kentridge’s work. Ashraf Jamal’s In the World brings together essays on a range of contemporary South African artists. Hedley Twiddle’s collection of essays Firepool: Experiences in an Abnormal World reflect on the absurdities of contemporary South African life. Late Essays by J.M. Coetzee contains critical essays published between 2006 and 2017, reflecting on authors such as Samuel Beckett, Leo Tolstoy and Philip Roth.

Once again Coetzee attracts a substantial portion of the criticism, with many articles and three books, including one focused entirely on The Childhood of Jesus. Zoë Wicomb and Olive Schreiner are the subjects of books: Zoë Wicomb & the Translocal: Writing Scotland & South Africa edited by Kai Easton and Derek Attridge and Olive Schreiner and African Modernism: Allegory, Empire and Postcolonial Writing by Jade Munslow Ong. Special issues of journals were devoted to Ivan Vladislavic and Lauretta Ngcobo. The rise of speculative and crime fiction has been noted over the past few years. It is pleasing to see this reflected in the criticism, with several articles on Lauren Beukes and the first full-length critical study of crime fiction, A Survey of South African Crime Fiction: Analysis and Publishing History by Sam Naidu and Elizabeth le Roux.

In addition to the authors previously mentioned, 2017 saw the deaths of two prominent authors: Peter Abrahams and Miriam Tlali. Abrahams, born in 1919, achieved prominence with a series of novels in the 1940s and 1950s speaking of the black experience in South Africa, including Mine Boy, A Wreath for Udomo and a memoir, Tell Freedom. Abrahams went into exile in Jamaica, where he was still living at the time of his death. Tlali, born 1933, became the first black woman to have a novel published: Muriel at Metropolitan in 1979. Later works included a novel, Amandla, a short story collection, Footprints in the Quag, and a memoir, Mihloti.