Early next month, I’ll be attending an international conference “examining 20 years of post-apartheid literature” in Regensburg, Germany, where I’ll be giving a paper on cityscapes in recent South African writing. Other participants include Crystal Warren of the amazing National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown and Willie Burger of the University of Pretoria with whom I edited Contrary: Critical Responses to the Novels of André Brink.

Conference brief:
“In his controversial essay “Preparing Ourselves for Freedom” (1989), Albie Sachs warned against seeing literature (and culture more generally) as merely a form of propaganda for ‘the struggle,’ arguing instead for texts that display “ambiguity and contradiction”. What road did South African literature take after this critique of ‘struggle literature’?” Continue reading…

As part of the conference there will be a panel conversation and a reading featuring Mike Nicol and Angela Makholwa.

Click here for the Provisional Programme.