South Africa

A

Literature

South African literature has three main literary traditions in English, Afrikaans, and Bantu languages. Black writers have contributed to South African literature in all of its linguistic traditions, including Sesotho, Xhosa, and Zulu, as well as English and Afrikaans. After the arrival of white settlers, traditional African themes were written in English by blacks who attended mission schools and training colleges in the late 19th century. Between World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945), this literature shifted away from a romanticized portrayal of the world toward the depiction of political oppression. Resistance literature blossomed after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 and the Soweto uprising in 1976 with themes of black consciousness evident in the poetry and prose of such writers as Mothobi Mutloatse and Miriam Tlali.

Black South Africans have a long and rich oral tradition still important today. Modern writers such as Guybon Sinxo (Xhosa), B. W. Vilakazi (Zulu), Oliver Kgadime Matsepe (Northern Sotho), and Thomas Mofolo (Southern Sotho) have been heavily influenced by the oral traditions of their cultures. Other leading black and Coloured writers include J. R. Jolobe, Alex La Guma, Bloke Modisane, Es’kia Mphahlele, and Adam Small.

A specifically South African literature in English, written by white South Africans, emerged with the 1883 publication of The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner, a novel about a young girl growing up in southern Africa. In the 20th century Sir Laurens Van der Post and Peter Lanham wrote novels about the cultural heritage of the peoples of South Africa. Others have focused specifically on South Africa’s social and political problems. These include novelists Alan Paton and Nadine Gordimer (winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in literature), and playwright Athol Fugard. Afrikaner novelists, notably Andre Brink and J. M. Coetzee (winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in literature), have also contributed books in English that deal with these issues.

Early Afrikaans writing focused on the political and linguistic struggles of Afrikaners, who are also known as Boers. This continued after the Boer War (1899-1902), also known as the South African War. Much Afrikaans writing in the 1930s was introspective and autobiographical, but in the 1940s the focus turned to World War II and a new social consciousness. Afrikaans has proved most fruitful as a medium for poetry, reaching mature expression in the 1930s through such poets as N. P. van Wyk Louw, Uys Krige, and Elisabeth Eybers. Other important writers of Afrikaans include poet, dramatist, and critic D. J. Opperman; novelist Etienne Leroux; and poet Breyten Breytenbach, an outspoken opponent of apartheid.

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B

Art and Architecture

South Africa has more than 3,000 sites of rock art dating from the Stone Age that depict animals and other subjects. The Ndebele people are known for the bold and brightly colored patterns with which they paint their traditional rural homes. Early paintings by European travelers like Thomas Baines have considerable documentary value today. South Africa’s first professional artists, including Hugo Naude and Jan Volschenck, depicted landscapes and were strongly influenced by the artistic traditions of Britain and the Netherlands. Subsequently, artists like H. Stratford Caldecott and especially J. Hendrik Pierneef found ways of translating the distinctive character of the South African environment. Much modern art by black South Africans originated in the townships around Johannesburg as early as the 1950s. Reflecting black South Africans’ struggles under the apartheid system, this art became known as township art. South African artists also experiment with most foreign styles. Landscapes remain an important theme, and recently some artists have also begun to concentrate on environmental issues.

Architecturally, South Africa is best known for the distinctive Cape Dutch buildings found mainly in the Western Cape and considered among the world’s most beautiful domestic architecture. Distinctive features include thick, whitewashed walls, curved gables, and a long, raised stoep, or verandah. Early rectangular buildings were frequently extended into L-shaped structures, followed later by more ambitious designs, including the distinctive H-plan of some larger country houses.

After the British occupation in 1806, the Cape Dutch style was slowly superseded by British influences, including Georgian architecture and, for public buildings and churches, neoclassical and Gothic Revival styles. The Victorian period of the mid- and late 1800s was marked by a great diversity of styles and influences. In Pietermaritzburg several fine buildings featured the bricks produced there. During the second half of the 20th century the influence of American architect Louis Kahn tended to predominate.

C

Music and Dance

South African music is characterized by its fusion of diverse musical forms from South Africa and overseas. By the 1950s unique musical styles had emerged, developed by black musicians in many South African townships. Township jazz, songs, dance, and popular music reflect a combination of traditional music, especially of the Zulu and Sotho peoples, with African American rhythm and blues, jazz, and blues. Some musicians who play in this hybrid style have won international acclaim, including Hugh Masekela, Mahlathini Nezintombi Zomgqashiyo, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Ladysmith Black Mambazo performs isicathamiya, a Zulu-influenced choral style that is sung a cappella, or without instrumental accompaniment. The group became prominent through their collaboration with American singer and songwriter Paul Simon. Also of note are the accordion jive music of Nelcy Sedibe, which developed as township street music and was influenced by American swing, and the modern, electric versions of Zulu traditional music performed by Moses Mchunu. Classical composers have begun to experiment with traditional African musical instruments as well. The Soweto String Quartet has emerged as an important example of this approach.

The development of dance in recent years is linked to the development of protest musicals in the theater. Styles of dancing on the stage include the toyi-toyi, a militant marching dance adapted from South African protest marches, as well as traditional Zulu dances. There are three professional ballet companies in South Africa and several independent groups.

D

Theater and Film

South African theater won international acclaim in the 1980s. A distinctive theater form emerged from the tense sociopolitical climate of the 1970s and 1980s. New and alternative theater groups were established, and a playwriting tradition developed, influenced by the Black Consciousness Movement. This theater form uses popular theater as a vehicle of protest and social commentary, mixing African and Western elements in productions of intense energy and vitality. This tradition is perhaps best exemplified by the work of Athol Fugard and by the world-famous Market Theatre in Johannesburg.

A national film industry has been slow to develop in South Africa. This is in part due to past apartheid policies and ineffective state subsidies for film. Darryl Roodt’s A Place of Weeping (1986) was the first film criticizing apartheid ever shown on the South African film circuit and effectively marked the beginning of an alternative film industry in South Africa. In 1995 Roodt also directed Cry the Beloved Country, based on a novel by Alan Paton. In 1995 the government created a fund for training and developing emerging talent in the local film industry, and a new film subsidy scheme. The Cape Film and Video Foundation, founded in 1993, actively promotes the Cape provinces as locations for international filmmaking.

E

Libraries and Museums

Nearly all South African towns and cities have libraries, the largest of which is the Johannesburg Public Library, with more than 1.6 million volumes. Other important libraries include the South African Library in Cape Town, the State Library in Pretoria, and university libraries including those of the University of South Africa, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town, the University of Stellenbosch, and the University of Pretoria.

South Africa has a large number of museums located in all major and many lesser cities and towns. The most notable include the National Museum in Bloemfontein, which contains archaeology, paleontology, and anthropology collections; MuseumAfrica in Johannesburg, which has collections relating to South African history, including displays representing the lives of South Africans under apartheid; and in Cape Town, the Michaelis Collection, the South African National Gallery, the South African Museum, and the South African Cultural History Museum.

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