REINVENTING A CONTINENT: Writing and Politics in South Africa.

Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.: Zoland Books, Incorporated, 1998. First U.S. Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. As New/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Novelist 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 C ONTINENT 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 toward democracy, when suddenly the clearly visible old enemies fall away. The argument which evolves through them all 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. As new, in fine, mylar-protected dust jacket. NF28