Race, Nation, Translation
South African Essays, 1990-2013
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- €13.99
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- €13.99
Publisher Description
The first collection of nonfiction critical writings by one of the leading literary figures of post-apartheid South Africa
The most significant nonfiction writings of Zoë Wicomb, one of South Africa’s leading authors and intellectuals, are collected here for the first time in a single volume. This compilation features critical essays on the works of such prominent South African writers as Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Njabulo Ndebele, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as writings on gender politics, race, identity, visual art, sexuality, and a wide range of other cultural and political topics. Also included are a reflection on Nelson Mandela and a revealing interview with Wicomb.
In these essays, written between 1990 and 2013, Wicomb offers insight on her nation’s history, policies, and people. In a world in which nationalist rhetoric is on the rise and diversity and pluralism are the declared enemies of right-wing populist movements, her essays speak powerfully to a wide range of international issues.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wicomb, a South African novelist (David's Story), short story writer, and literary and cultural critic, assembles some of her best previously published essays, spanning three decades of a brilliant career. Part one includes insightful essays about politics and culture written beginning in the late apartheid period, including the playful "Remembering Nelson Mandela," a version of which was originally published in the New Yorker. Part two includes scholarly, dense essays focused on questions of reading and authorship, in which Wicomb engages thoughtfully with the works of fellow South African writers J.M. Coetzee, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, and Ivan Vladislavic. Part three concludes with a recent interview with the author. The value of this book lies in its insider-outsider perspective: Wicomb was born in South Africa but left in the 1970s and has lived in Scotland for most of her career. She explains, "My life, however, remained immersed in South Africa in the sense that all my work, creative and critical, was centered in the place that I did not live." Because of the highly specialized and technical vocabulary, the general reader will struggle with the text. The audience is limited to advanced students of postcolonial studies or literary and linguistic scholars with extensive background knowledge of South African literature, politics, and culture.
