Books and publishing in the South African trade market: changing writers, changing themes

Abstract

This article investigates author profiles and writing in South Africa's history, with a special focus on changes that have occurred from the apartheid period to the present day. South Africa has gone through significant change in the past few decades, including major political upheaval. This has had a notable effect on South African writers and the works they produced then, and still produce. These changes have also had an effect on the languages, readers, publishers and book market in South Africa. This author has concluded that South African authors have adapted to their environment and that their writing is representative of this. While English-language books have always had a strong readership market, Afrikaans has surged in popularity, while African languages continue to be poorly represented. Authors from different races and both genders are being published in this country, but the themes of their writings have changed from resistance to reconciliation literature. Today, a greater number of publications on political disaster and crime are appearing, while books detailing South Africa's history remain popular with readers. Authors are also attempting to write ‘lighter’ material, such as romance, adventure and crime fiction. While there are more women writers on the scene than before, there is a paucity of black women writers. In general, though, women writers still lag behind their male counterparts in the popularity stakes.