An Aspect of the South African Experience in Literature and Reading

The works of two leading South African novelists are examined: Bessie Head and Alex La Guma. The author takes a comparative approach, seeking critically to analyse and evaluate their prose fiction, particularly in the context of South African literature during apartheid.  The literary techniques of social realism are employed, as opposed to the aesthetic technique of literary evaluation. The conditions under which the fiction was produced and the role of the novel in those conditions is ideologically analysed, focusing on the emancipator qualities of literature. The book examines the mutually exclusive stances in the discussion of literary analysis; the works of Bessie Head with special reference to A Question of Power and Maru; selected works of Alex La Guma; and a contrastive valuation of their respective achievements in the works examined.