Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface, Acknowledgements, Illustrations -- Introduction -- 1 "Look elsewhere for your bedtime story": -- William Plomer and the Politics of Love -- 2 "Life on the black side of the fence": -- Forced Removals and the Migrant Labour System in Mtutuzeli Matshoba's Seeds of War -- 3 "An island in a sea of apartheid": -- Richard Rive's District Six -- 4 "Literature in an imperfect world": -- Censorship in South Africa -- 5 Of "Undesirability": -- The Control of Theatre in South Africa During the Age of Apartheid -- 6 "Born out of flames": -- Marsemela Manaka's Theatre for Social Reconstructions -- 7 "Repainting the damaged canvas": -- The Theatre of Matsemela Manaka -- 8 "The people are claiming their history": -- Reconstructions of History in Black South African Writing -- 9 From Soweto to Gorée: -- A South African Writer in Search of the African Heritage -- 10 "When it's all over, and we all return": Matsemela Manaka's Play Ekhaya - Going Home -- 11 Theatre for a Post-Apartheid Society -- 12 Conclusion: -- "What are South Africans now going to write about?" -- Appendix: -- The Intoxicated Octopus and the Garlic-Kissed Prawn: -- On South African Bibliography -- Works Cited.

Over the past fifty years transformations of great moment have taken place in South Africa. Apartheid and the subsequent transition to a democratic, non-racial society in particular have exercised a profound effect on the practice of literature. This study traces the development of literature under apartheid, then seeks to identify the ways in which writers and theatre practitioners are now facing the challenges of a new social order. The main focus is on the work of black writers, prime among them Matsemela Manaka, Mtutuzeli Matshoba and Richard Rive, who, as politically committed members of the oppressed majority, bore witness to the "black experience" through their writing. Despite the draconian censorship system they were able to address the social problems caused by racial discrimination in all areas of life, particularly through forced removals, the migrant labour system, and the creation of the homelands. Their writing may be read both as a comprehensive record of everyday life under apartheid and as an alternative cultural history of South Africa. Particular attention is paid to theatre as a barometer of social change in South Africa. The concluding chapters consider how in the current period of transition writers and arts institutions have set about reassessing their priorities, redefining their function and seeking new aesthetic directions in taking up the challenge of imagining a new society.

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