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Towards Liberation: Black Women Writing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Ursula Edmands
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Extract

A number of recent developments in South Africa both on the political front and on the literary scene, could be termed ‘radical’, depending on one's own political and literary perspectives. I myself, for example, am not enthusiastic about the so-called radical reform of South Africa's parliamentary system, which has been much in the news lately. Although this move will give a tiny minority of black South Africans a limited form of representation in parliament, it seems to me to leave the essential power structures untouched. To members of the ultra-right wing political parties, on the other hand, this move appears to threaten the very foundations of white civilisation, and should be resisted at all costs.

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Articles
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African Research and Documentation , Volume 36 , 1984, pp. 18 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1984

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References

Footnotes

1 Gwala, Mafika, ‘Black Writing Today’ in Sowetu Poetry, ed. Chapman (London, Mc-Graw-Hill, 1982).Google Scholar

2 Mutloase, Mothobi, Forced Landing, (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1980 P-3).Google Scholar

3 Kimble J. and Unterhalter E; ‘We opened the road for you, you must go forward,’ ANC women's struggles, 1912-82’ (Feminist Review 12, 1982).

4 Bernstein, H. For their triumph and their tears, women in apartheid South Africa, (London, International Defence and Aid Fund, 1978, P-8).Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p.9.

6 Rive, Richard, Writing Black, (Cape Town, David Philip, 1981, p.l).Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 10.

8 Tlali, Miriam. ‘In search of books’, Sowetu Poetry, p.45. All the Tlali quotations are from this source.

9 Head, Bessie. A Question of Power, (London, H.E.B., 1974, p.19).

10 Quoted in Barnett, U. A Vision of Order, p. 129.

11 Head, Bessie. Where Rain Clouds Gather, (London, Gollancz, 1969).

12 Ibid., p. 129-30.

13 Head, Bessie. Maru, (London, Gollancz, 1971).

14 A Question of Power, p. 16.

15 Ibid., p.l 1.

16 Ibid., p.201.

17 Thomas, Gladys (with James Matthews). Cry Rage, (Johannesburg, Spro-Cas, 1972).

18 Ibid., p.77.

19 Ibid., p.19.

20 Mandela, Zindsi (with Peter Magubane) black as I am, (California Guild of Tutors Press, 1978).Google Scholar

21 Barnett, U. A Vision of Order, a study of black South African literature, 1914-80, (London, Sinclair Brown, 1983).Google Scholar