During the final years of the apartheid era and the subsequent transition to democracy, South African literary writing caught the world's attention as never before. This book examines that literary activity, and brings together for the first time discussions by some of the most distinguished South African writers with those of leading commentators.

Maps; Notes on contributors; South Africa 1970–95: a chronology; 1. Introduction Rosemary Jolley and Derek Attridge; 2. Interrogating silence: new possibilities faced by South African literature André Brink; 3. I am dead: you cannot read: André Brink's On the Contrary Peter Horn; 4. Endings and new beginnings: South African fiction in translation Elleke Boehmer; 5. The post-apartheid sublime: rediscovering the extraordinary Graham Pechey; 6. Postmodernism and black writing in South Africa Lewis Nkosi; 7. Shame and identity: the case of the coloured in South Africa Zoë Wicomb; 8. A man's world: South African gay writing and the state of emergency Michiel Heyns; 9. The final safari: on nature, myth and the literature of the Emergency Rita Barnard; 10. Interview with Miriam Tlali, interviewed by Rosemary Jolly; 11. Speech and silence in the fictions of J. M. Coetzee Benita Parry; 12. 'Dialogue' and 'fulfilment' in J. M. Coetzee's Age of Iron David Attwell; 13. Interview with Mongone Wally Serote, interviewed by Rolf Solberg; 14. Inside out: Jeremy Cronin's lyrical politics Brian Macaskill; 15. Spinning out the present: narrative, gender, and the politics of South African theatre Dennis Walder; 16. South African theatre in the United States: the allure of the familiar and the exotic Jeanne Colleran; Position Papers: 17. Preparing ourselves for freedom Albie Sachs; 18. Challenges facing theatre practitioners in the new South Africa Maishe Maponya; 19. Current trends in theatre for development in South Africa Zakes Mda; 20. A select bibliography of South African literary writing in English, 1970–95; Index.