Transitions - Half a Century of South African Short Stories (Paperback) - Craig MacKenzie

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South Africa has witnessed enormous political and social changes in the near half century between 1948 and 1994. These transitions have been registered by South African writers, sometimes directly but more often in subtle and subliminal ways. From Bosman's modernist retelling of oral tales, through the acute social realism of Gordimer and Mphalele, the social and personal conflict captured in the stories of Rive, Essop, Head and Roberts, the stories of growing up in South Africa (Ndebele) and returning after years of exile (Wicomb), to the innovative satire of Hope, Vladislavic and Isaacson, the stories collected here explore moments in South Africa's inexorable, and continuing process of transition. The compiler, who teaches in the Department of English at Rand Afrikaans University, has provided an introductory overview of the development of the short story in South Africa over the late 19th and 20th centuries, as well as interesting background material, biographical information about the authors, and divergent views on the stories by various critics.