Black South African short fiction in English since 1976

Abstract

The students' uprising of 1976 hardly features in stories by black South African writers. In this respect, the short story is noticeably different from novels, plays and poems by black writers in which these events are often given central place. Short fiction, one should indicate, has been a predominant genre in the black community since the 1950's. What one sees happening after 1976 is not so much, a new direction for this genre, but a flowering of new works in the form. That is, the major collections of black short fiction since 1975 have not offered any major break with foregoing traditions in the form, as most certainly seems the case with the novel, but have continued the exploration of themes and concerns central to earlier collections of black short stories: what is different is the emefeence of new writers in the form. In this essay, I shall examine the key elements of black South African short fiction in English since 1976, touching upon connections not only with earlier collections of black short fiction but also with short fiction by white South African writers.