Reinventing a Continent: Writing and Politics in South Africa 1982 - 1998 - Hardcover

Like slightly stale bread, these essays (most from the 1980s and early 1990s) by one of South Africas leading novelists examining the role of that countrys literature have seen better days. The end of apartheid struck South African artists particularly hard, remarks Brink. So much of their work had been premised on bravely decrying myriad injustices, on supporting the ``struggle'' as a weapon of liberation. Within these confines, hemmed in by censorship and oppression, extraordinary creativity flourished. But as Brink (Imaginings of Sand, 1996, etc.) notes, ``imagination remained predicated on the presence of prison bars.'' As soon as the bars started to lift, many artists were overwhelmed by the burden of freedom. But Brink is an optimist. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he has avoided the deconstructionist obscurity or thinly veiled despair that characterizes so much white South African writing today. In fact, many of these essays revolve around potential new directions and roles for art. He goes as far as to compare apartheids end to photographys freeing of 19th-century painting from the constraints of realism. Other essays are taken up with that perennial big issue: the role of art and the artist in societyespecially a society where art, at first glance, looks like a luxury. Brink also examines Afrikaner society, rugby, and the minutiae of political developments. There are some embarrassingly adulatory encomiums to the African National Congress and its various politicos (though his accolades from the 1990s are a little more evenhanded). Brink has a clear and forceful, passionate style. But unlike an Orwell or a Greene, he is unable to transform the timeliness of most of these essays into something more timeless. Nelson Mandela contributes the books preface. As a record of liberal white South African thought ten years ago, this is a peerless collection, but by almost any other criteria, most of these essayswith a few notable exceptionsare fast slipping into irrelevance. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In essays spanning the turbulent period 1982-97, South African novelist Brink (The Ambassador) explores his country's transformation from racist pariah to multiracial democracy. Brink is primarily concerned here with the role of the writer in an unjust society and the role of literature in combating oppression. He is at his most convincing when discussing concrete events and people. His essay on Afrikaners?"the white tribe of Africa," descendants of the Dutch colonists who settled South Africa?is keen and sympathetic, though hardly uncritical. Brink's piece on the freeing of Nelson Mandela conveys the excitement and anticipation of that historical moment. Reflecting on the situation in his troubled homeland leads Brink to ask profound questions: If all power corrupts, as he believes it does, how can a writer marshal the "power of the word" in the quest for justice? How do writers who have dedicated their lives and careers to the struggle against apartheid find their voice following its demise? Unfortunately, the caliber of the essays varies widely. Some seem like papers presented at an academic conference, filled with dizzying abstractions ("Violence is the language culture speaks when no other valid articulation is left open to it") and citations of other works. Nevertheless, Brink provides a thoughtful and humane response to injustice. Several of these pieces were originally published in South Africa and/or in England.
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