The Lava of This Land

South African Poetry 1960-1996

Denis Hirson editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Northwestern University Press

Published:1st Aug '97

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Lava of This Land cover

The lava of change has spilled over South Africa again as apartheid as ended. What sort of social and artistic emerges as it cools? This anthology, containing more than two hundred poems by over fifty poets, spans five distinct historical periods in the contemporary development of South Africa, from the 1960s Durban worker strikes to the dismantling of apartheid in the 1990s. Most of the poems have been written in English, but forty-eight have been translated from Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, and /Xam, a Bushman linguistic group. Inspired by music, by the language of the streets, by the sensual and the erotic, and by social, political, and economic turmoil, these poems showcase a remarkable complexity of literary traditions. They provide a fascinating and moving rendering of South Africa's hybrid language and unique worldview.

ISBN: 9780810150683

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 825g

328 pages