Wrestling with the Present, Beckoning to the Past: Contemporary Zulu Radio Drama

Abstract

The paper explores aspects of the history of radio drama in Zulu from 1941 to the present. It briefly sketches in the history of radio in South Africa and the oppressive role of apartheid ideology in its formation and development. It also provides a commentary on the role of radio drama as a producer of culture throughout the apartheid years and into the post-apartheid era. Arguing that radio drama in Zulu has become a clearly definable aural genre deeply involved in contemporary South African life and intimately connected to the needs and desires of its large audience, the paper takes the reader through the decades of the 1950s and 1960s and shows how the skills of writing, producing and acting were the terrain of a small and talented group of practitioners who bypassed the snares of the censor and attracted an eager and discerning audience among both urban and rural listeners. A number of dramas are discussed and questions raised concerning the role of language in providing a medium for 'multi-accentual' engagement with a changing contemporary culture and with the past.