South Africa

Introduction

Covid-19 continued to impact South African life and literature in 2021. The country experienced several waves of infections, with restrictions and regulations being adjusted constantly. Like most of the country, literary events such as book launches, book fairs, arts festivals and so on moved between online, in person or hybrid. But every live event came with the risk of a new lockdown level being imposed, along with fluctuating restrictions on numbers of attendees, or even the complete cancellation of gatherings. Arts practitioners and those in the literary landscape learned to be flexible, and adaptable, and we all learned how to live and work in a strange hybrid space.

It remains to be seen to what extent the ongoing pandemic will appear in the literature, with at least one novel They Got to You Too by Futhi Ntshingila referencing the lockdown. Several journals issued calls for special issues relating to aspects of the pandemic. Of these, English Studies in Africa included poetry as well as critical articles around the theme of “The Plague Years”, with a range of authors and themes being discussed. English Academy Review specifically focussed on Covid in their special issue on “Covid-19 Humour in Africa”. Two journals, English in Africa and Journal of Commonwealth Literature produced issues focused on Olive Schreiner. Schreiner died in 1920 and would have been a special focus at many conferences and events to commemorate her centenary, all of which ended up being cancelled. Schreiner was initially buried in Cape Town but was reinterred in the Karoo in 1921, enabling a continued focus of commemoration.

While this introduction has historically ended with the obituaries of authors who have died during the year under review, we will once again highlight them at the start. While not all the deaths were linked to Covid, it is noteworthy just how many authors were lost in the year, including playwrights Ronnie Govender, Roy Sargeant and Antony Sher, children’s author and critic Jay Heale, poets Hugh Hodge, Bernard Levinson, Lindiwe Mabuza, Chris Mann and Maishe Maponya, scriptwriter and theatre critic Bhekizizwe Peterson, up and coming novel and short story writer Phumlani Pikoli, poet and fiction writer Peter Wilhelm, popular novelist Wilbur Smith, and Percy Tucker, whose autobiography sheds light on his years of work in the theatre and entertainment industry. This year saw a much higher than usual number of posthumously published books, or works which appeared a few months before the authors’ death (Levinson and Smith).

Chris Mann’s final collection Palimpsests appeared shortly after his death. He had approved the final details but did not live to see the launch. Myesha Jenkins had completed her final collection before her death in 2020 but Thirty Five Poems was only published in 2021. Gripscapes is a volume of selected poems by Norman Morrissey, selected and edited by John van Wyngaard in the years since Morrissey’s death in 2017. Bernard Levinson combined a debut with a collected poems volume, bringing together poems written and published over many years. The collection appeared shortly before his death. Selected or collected poems from living poets came from Gary Cummisky and C. J. Driver, with new collections from established poets John Eppel, Alan Finlay, Makhosazana Xaba and Athol Williams. Williams is one of several authors to have more than one book listed, although in his case they both cover a similar area. Williams made headlines, not for his poetry but for his testimony at a government commission on corruption, testimony which saw him threatened to the extent that he left the country fearing for his life. His non-fiction work Deep Collusion draws on his testimony into corporate corruption but also shows the personal aspect, giving insight into the challenges and risks of being a whistle-blower. He explores this further in his poetry collection Whistleblowing.

Justin Fox is another author with two books in print, a novel and his first collection Beat Routes, poems with a travel theme. Novelist Dominique Botha also turns to poetry with her first collection, in which the poems appear in both English and Afrikaans. Other noteworthy debuts appeared from Liz Gowans, Dimakatso Sedite, Simon van Schalkwyk and Sue Woodward. Sedite and Woodward were shortlisted for the Ingrid Jonker Prize for English Poetry which was won by Jacques Coetzee for his 2020 collection An Illuminated Darkness. The award is given for a debut collection published in the previous two years, alternating between English and Afrikaans.

Koleka Putuma follows up her groundbreaking debut with a second collection Hullo, Bu-bye, Koko, Come In. The title is taken from a song by Brenda Fassie and tackles the legacy of erasure of black women in arts and culture. Putumu adapted the collection for stage, under the same name, blurring the boundaries between page and performance. Makhosazana Xaba blurs the lines between poetry and fiction in her unusual collection The Art of Waiting for Tales. Xaba works with a novel by Barbara Boswell and uses found poems to retell the novel’s story. Hashtag Poetry, one of several strong anthologies of poetry, draws on social media and the hashtag, grouping poems into sections such as #whistleblowing, #paybackthemoney, #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, with poems addressing societal issues. Years of Fire and Ash contains a mix of established voices and classic poems as well as new voices to address issues of decolonization and social transformation. Wild Imperfections brings together 40 black women poets.

In the drama, a classic work of South African workshopped theatre is brought into print, giving voice to women’s experiences under apartheid. You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock was created in 1985 by Phyllis Klotz in collaboration with Thobeka Maqhutyana, Nomvula Qosha and Poppy Tsira. First Accused by Mava Silumko explores contemporary concerns of femicide and gender-based violence against women and children. It was the winner of the Best Production at the Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival in 2020. Another 2020 Baxter Zabalaza winner in print is Ganga Nyoko! Inzima Nyoko (Catch, Brother! It’s Hard, Brother!) by Sibuyiselo Dywili, a play about two old friends who reconnect after several years. This is one of several multilingual works, with the text in English and isiXhosa. Kunene and the King is a new play from John Kani, focussing on two very different men brought together by circumstances, who reflect back on 25 years of post-apartheid life. When the play premiered in England in 2019 the roles were played by Kani and Antony Sher.

Half of the plays published are classic texts brought back into print. Pieter-Dirk Uys has made available the text of his first seven one-man shows, performed between 1981 and 1994, including background and archival photos of the productions. Lewis Nkosi was best known as a writer of fiction, journalism, and literary criticism, but also wrote a few plays. His best-known one-act play “The Black Psychiatrist” is published together with its unpublished sequel “Flying Home”. The book includes critical commentary on the two plays as well as tributes to Nkosi, who died in 2010.

Fiction is by far the biggest section. It is particularly encouraging to see so many strong debuts, with Michelle Edwards, Gretchen Haley, Joanne Joseph, Lisa-Anne Julien, A’Eysha Kassiem, Naledi Mashishi, Lebo Mazibuko, Tshidiso Moletsane, Thendiwe Mswane, Milton Schorr and Uvile Xima names to watch.

Of the many novels, Damon Galgut’s The Promise gained the most attention, winning the Booker Prize. The novel follows a white family over four decades, showing the changing country and conditions on the family farm, with the constant backdrop of a promise made and not kept. This was Galgut’s third time to be shortlisted, and he became the third South African author to win the prize, after Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee. It is hoped that the publicity of the prize will increase the critical attention paid to Galgut, who is once again underrepresented, with only one article in this year’s bibliography. Karen Jennings joined Galgut on the Booker longlist with her 2020 novel An Island although she did not make it to the shortlist. Unfortunately, most of the main South African literary awards have either gone into abeyance or have not yet announced their winners or even shortlists. The Sunday Times Literary Award longlisted 25 novels, showing the strength of the field this year (with both Galgut and Jennings on the longlist). Eight of the novels shortlisted are debuts. In a manuscript form, Go Away Birds by Michelle Edwards was long-listed for the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award in 2018, and follows the story of a young woman who finds herself going back to her childhood home after a traumatic experience.

The Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature: Gold went to Catherine Jarvis for her debut novel The Swim Team, with Silver going to Penny Lorimer for Luntu Masiza Tells the Truth. Interestingly, both authors are high school teachers, and both novels have a school setting, showing teenagers coping with difficult situations. The Swim Team focusses on a scholarship student at an elite private school, where her struggles to fit in are exacerbated by bullying. Luntu Masiza Tells the Truth takes the form of a series of emails written by a teenage boy to his teacher as part of a school-holiday assignment, revealing challenges in his life. The Girl Who Chased Otters by Sally Partridge explores friendship, love and acceptance as well as the impact of gossip and bullying. Lighter in tone and showing the influence of social media on teenagers are Hashtag Happy by Theodora Lee and Taking Selfies with a Sheep by Jaco Jacobs. Confessions of a Ginger Pudding by Zelda Bezuidenhout shows a young girl who attempts to reinvent herself when moving to a new school. Stutterer is a posthumously published novel by Andre Lemmer, who died in 2020, about a teenage boy who stutters but connects with an aspiring actress through a school play. The Last Time I Died by Fanie Viljoen and Daniel Hughes is a speculative fiction graphic novel based on Viljoen’s 2016 novel of the same title.

Speculative fiction for adults includes Exposure by Louis Greenberg, set in an alternative England, Dan Wylie’s environmental disaster novel Flight of the Bat, fantasies Thanatos by Nerine Dorman (a sequel to Inkarna) and Strange Fish by Milton Schorr. Ancestral by Charlie Human and Invisible Strings by Naledi Mashishi draw on ancestral powers and African belief systems in creating novels blurring the distinctions between fantasy and reality. The popularity of crime fiction shows no sign of dying, with new novels from Deon Meyer, David Dyson, Mike Nicol, Irna van Zyl and Irma Venter. New entrants to the field include gritty thrillers which grapple with South Africa’s violent past from Nathi Oliphant and Lukhanyo Sikwebu and a series of cosy mysteries set in England by Katie Gayle, the writing team of Kate Sidley and Gail Schimmel.

The past is an ever-present feature of the fiction. Zakes Mda’s Wayfarer’s Hymns uses a history of famo music from the 1940s and 1950s to anchor his novel of a wandering musician. The novel includes the characters of Toloki and Noria from Mda’s earlier novel Ways of Dying. When the Village Sleeps by Sindiwe Magona is told through four generations of women, moving between townships and rural village life. Children of Sugarcane, the impressive debut of Joanne Joseph spans four decades against the backdrop of 19^th century India and the Indians who were brought to South Africa as indentured labourers to work on the sugarcane plantations. Isle by Claire Robertson explores the lives of women on two islands in two very different periods: 1289 and World War II. The Cape Raider, a naval thriller by Justin Fox and The Fire Portrait by Barbara Mutch also have World War II as a setting. More recent history is the background for The Fading Light by Ashraf Kagee and The Lost Language of the Soul by Mandla Langa, which features many elements found in the fiction: coming of age accounts, moving between past and present, and a focus on political events, with Kagee drawing on the years of the Sharpeville Massacre and Langa following a teenage boy searching for his activist parents. The Wanderers by Mphutumi Ntabeni shows a young woman trying to find out the truth about her father, a political activist who went into exile before her birth but never returned.

Suitcase of Memory by A’Eysha Kassiem has a narrator speaking after his death, recollecting his experiences under apartheid rules, where a mixed-race romance saw him seeking to be reclassified. They Got to You Too by Futhi Ntshilinga explores the legacy of apartheid, as a police general find himself being cared for in his old age home by the daughter of liberation struggle activists. The isolation of the Covid-19 lockdown leads to secrets and revelations. In The Artist Vanishes Terry Westby-Nunn shows a jaded filmmaker attempting to restart his career by investigating the disappearance years earlier of a controversial artist. Hibiscus Coast by Nick Mulgrew follows a young woman in 1997 reluctantly moving to New Zealand and becoming part of the expat community there.

More contemporary coming-of-age novels include The Heart Is the Size of a Fist by P. P. Fourie, Bantu Knots by Lebo Mazibuko and Dreaming in Colour by Uvile Ximba. Mazibuko and Ximba also explore the relationships between women, either friends or across generations. Similar themes appear in Unbecoming by Joanne Fedler, Being Dianne by Quanita Loxton, When the Village Sleeps by Sindiwe Magona, All Gomorrahs are the Same by Thenjiwe Mswane, An Unusual Grief by Yewande Omotoso, Never Tell a Lie by Gail Schimmel and Christopher by Nozuko Siyotula.

In short stories, there are strong debuts from Sally Cranswick, Henali Kuit, Nthikeng Mohlele (better known as a novelist) and Dianne Stewart (better known as a writer of children’s fiction) as well as impressive new collections from Fred Khumalo and S. J. Naudé. Both Kuit and Naudé’s collections were published in English and Afrikaans, with Naudé winning the Herzog Prize for the Afrikaans version Dol Heuning and the UJ Prize for Literary Translation, for his self-translation into English. This example highlights the challenges in a multilingual society in deciding if a self-translated work should appear under translation. The UJ Prize was formerly issued for creative works in English and Afrikaans, but in 2021 added three new categories: isiZulu, Sesotho, and Literary Translation.

Three themed anthologies of short stories are noteworthy, with Hauntings and Upshot containing stories commissioned or selected by the editor. Hauntings edited by Niq Mhlongo contains 19 stories in a range of genres exploring the theme of hauntings and ghosts of the past. Upshot: Stories of Financial Futures edited by Lauren Beukes contains seven works of speculative fiction, and was interestingly commissioned by investment firm RisCura. Disruption edited by Rachel Zadock, Karina Szczurek and Jason Mykl Snyman is the newest in the annual anthologies from Short Story Day Africa, containing stories by writers across Africa, with a significant number of South Africans included. Unlike the other two which were curated, this draws on open entries, including less-familiar names as well as established authors.

In the criticism, while there is substantial work on established authors such as Coetzee, Schreiner, Head, La Guma and so on, it is pleasing to see the critical attention being paid to newer authors such as Sally Andrews, Ameera Conrad, Reneilwe Malatji, Frank Owen, Koleka Putuma and others. A dominant theme in the criticism is the issue of gender-based violence, with many articles exploring rape and violence against women. A more positive development is the arrival of a new journal edited by Siphiwo Mahala. Imbiza (not to be confused with critical journal Imbizo) contains a mix of creative writing, popular articles on aspects of South African literature, as well as selected longer works of scholarly criticism.