Brink, Andre

Cambridge. 1998. Zoland Books. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0944072895. Preface by Nelson Mandela. 274 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Glenn Suokko. keywords: South Africa Politics Literature. FROM THE PUBLISHER - ‘These essays open a vista on the challenges and the rich possibilities ahead.' - from the preface by President Nelson Mandela. An international bestselling author of eleven novels, AndrE Brink here chronicles an extraordinary period of social change in South Africa, in his first new work of nonfiction in fifteen years. From the darkest and most oppressive years of apartheid, through the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the negotiations of a peaceful settlement, to the first years of a fledgling democracy with all its euphoria and misgivings, Reinventing A Continent charts the cultural, individual and literary meanings of freedom and repression. These essays give an intimate view and a personal interpretation of the way in which literature functions in a virtual state of siege, and the challenges thrown up by a shift towards democracy, when suddenly the clearly visible old enemies fall away. Exploring what South Africa has in common with other recently liberated societies in Central Europe and elsewhere, they also focus specifically on forces that gave change in South Africa its particular flavor: the national identity of the Afrikaner people who for so long shaped the destinies of the country, the peculiar brand of racism that characterized apartheid, the nature of African ubuntu (generosity, sharing, humanity) which largely prevented a bloodbath in South Africa. The essays collected here range in tone from dispassionate historical overview to bare-knuckles polemic. The argument which evolves through them all continually returns to the function of the creative writer in society and the nature of the process by which the imagination transforms the real of the everyday world into a heightened awareness, and the metaphors of fiction. inventory #26719 ISBN: 0944072895.