New Directions in Post‐Apartheid South African Fiction and Scholarship

Abstract

AbstractAfter the formal end of the apartheid period in 1994, some writers and critics expressed a sense of unease about the future of South African literature. Yet, the post‐apartheid period has produced an array of texts on topics not previously part of South African literary discourse. Writing from the transitional period for the most part turned inward, working in or against the confessional mode modeled by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. During the current post‐transitional period, marked loosely by the publication of J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace in 1999, a younger generation of writers has begun to represent new social issues surrounding difference and inequality, especially representations of Black women, gays and lesbians, and migrants. Recent critical approaches to this literature have offered valuable conceptual tools for further research.