South African London: Writing the metropolis after 1948

This book presents a long-ranging and in-depth study of South African writing set in London during the apartheid years and beyond. Since London served as an important site of South African exile and emigration, particularly during the second half of the twentieth-century, the city shaped the history of South African letters in meaningful and material ways. Being in London allowed South African writers to engage with their own expectations of Englishness, and to rethink their South African identities. The book presents a range of diverse and fascinating responses by South African writers that provide nuanced perspectives on exile, global racisms and modernity. Writers studied include Peter Abrahams, Dan Jacobson, Noni Jabavu, Todd Matshikiza, Arthur Nortje, Lauretta Ngcobo, J.M.Coetzee, Justin Cartwright, and Ishtiyaq Shukri. South African London offers an original and multi-faceted take on both London writing and South African twentieth-century literature.\nFrom the Back Cover\nTo read South African writing about London is to study the development of South African literature, and culture more broadly, in relation to one of the most important geographical touchstones within the South African imaginary. What the South African literary texts about London analysed in this valuable new study have in common is that they respond to the apartheid context, displaced to a non-South African location that is a significant site of South African exile and emigration.\nTravel to London afforded South African writers opportunities to rethink ideas about Englishness and also forged fresh engagements with South African subjectivities. South African London uncovers a range of diverse and fascinating responses by South African writers that provide nuanced perspectives on exile, global racisms and modernity.\nThis book presents innovative and unexpected angles on major South African writers, such as Peter Abrahams, Dan Jacobson, Noni Jabavu, Todd Matshikiza, Arthur Nortje, Lauretta Ngcobo, J.M.Coetzee, Justin Cartwright, and Ishtiyaq Shukri and includes genres from life writing to novels and poetry. Since South African London considers the dual locations of London and South Africa alongside each other, it offers a refracted history of postwar London that emphasises the transnational networks of the city and the worldliness of South African letters.