ENGL 359(F) Black South African Literature of the Protest Period*

"South African literature became white by decree in 1966," proclaimed black South African writer Richard Rive in his autobiography, Writing Black. In this course we will examine a dynamic eighteen-year period in black South African literature. Between 1948, with the publication of Ezekiel Mphahlele's Down Second Avenue, and the decree which Rive remarked upon, there was a flurry of writing by black South Africans. 1948 to 1966, dubbed the era of "Protest Writing" because it took as its focus cultural opposition to the apartheid regime, coincided with the first major urbanization of black South Africans. This period saw the establishment, and sometimes the consolidation, of black communities just at the periphery of South Africa's major urban centers. With the growth of a black proletariat and an urban intelligentsia, sparked and deeply influenced by the American Harlem Renaissance, black writers such as Mphahlele, Rive, Bloke Modisane, Todd Matshikiza, and Lewis Nkosi, set about capturing the experiences of this newly urbanized and culturally vigorous black populace. Many of the Protest authors "graduated" from popular journalism to literature, with a special predilection for autobiography. This course will study several of these autobiographies, among which Mphahlele's and Modisane's are arguably the most pivotal, but we will also read the poetry of Arthur Nortje and a selection of short stories from a variety of writers, some of which will include their journalistic work. This course, then, will map the trajectory of black South African literature over this crucial period-one without which contemporary black letters would be inconceivable, and will explore the links between autobiography, poetry, short stories, and the growth of the apartheid state. Requirements: two 10- to 12-page papers. Prerequisite: English 101. Enrollment limited to 25.

Hour:FARRED