South African Criticism of South African NovelsThe South African Novel in English. Essays in Criticism and Society by Kenneth ParkerReview by: Nancy J. SchmidtAfrica Today, Vol. 27, No. 2, External Intervention in Africa (2nd Qtr., 1980), pp. 68-69Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4185933 .

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Her major writings, An African Aristocracy and Uniform of Colour, are standard references to traditional Swazi culture and to the impact of alien pressures upon it. This new biography draws from that intimate knowledge as well as from her favored access to the king and his family and from her personal familiarity with the events about which she wrote. Perhaps her greatest difficulty with the book is her familiarity with the Swazi. The lay reader must give careful attention to keep the details straight, even with the glossary of Swazi terms. Nonetheless, the biography provides a rewarding insight into the African perspective on the transition to independence.

The book clearly reveals the author's sympathies with the Swazi king. Nowhere is this more evident than in her defense of the king's act of abolishing the constitution. The reader must remember, however, that this biography was commissioned by the king and written with the advice of a committee appointed by him and his cabinet. Kuper explains her position by stating, "An official biography is by definition selective; but it does not follow that it is less true." (p. 14). The reader will want to compare this official Swazi version with more independent accounts; however, one should not overlook this authoritative and detailed biography of a ruler who so fully characterizes the efforts of Africans to free themselves not only from alien cultural dominance. It will doubtless take an honored place among the small group of biographies now being written about African leaders.

South African Criticism

of South Afriean Novels Nancy J. Schmidt

Kenneth Parker, editor, THE SOUTH AFRICAN NOVEL IN ENGLISH. Essays in Criticism and Society (New York: Africana, 1979). 202 pp. $21.75

". . . the critic or reader of South African writing must be prepared to shelve the customary response of simply seeing all South African writing as a monotonous response to the racist evils of South Africa. To appreciate the intricacy of, and to perceive the imaginative quality of this writing, it is imperative that the context of the writing, with its vast panorama of imagery and insight, be fully grasped."

Cecil Abrahams

This collection of nine essays written by six South African critics, five who now reside outside of South Africa and one who is imprisoned in South Africa, follows the typical preoccupation of criticism of South African writing. It focuses on the "all-embracing racism" of South Africa, but from the perspective of a "countervailing radicalism which specifically rejected colour

Nancy J. Schmidt is librarian at Tozzer Library, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

68 AFRICA TODAY

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Nancy J. Schmidt and favoured a non-racial society." The editor suggests that the intent of the essays is to go beyond a survey of authors, titles and plots to a discussion of the authors and novels in relation to society.

In his introductory essay, "The South African Novel in English," Kenneth Parker raises again issues that are all-too-familiar in the criticism of South African writing, such as the relationship between politics and art in South Africa, the appropriate critical criteria to use in the unique social milieu of South Africa, and the problem of analyzing South African writing as sociology rather than literature. In surveying the South African novel Parker considers only "liberal-concerned writers," those who have a "marked creative sensibility allied to and informed by a deep compassion" when writing about interracial relationships in the South African context. This narrows the field of South African fiction to facilitate comparison, but it also drastically limits the range of societal factors that are brought to bear on literary criticism, since the liberal perspective has long been a minority perspective in South Africa.

The essays in the collection focus on eight "liberal-concerned writers:" Olive Schreiner, Pauline Smith, Sol Plaatje, Sarah Millin, William Plomer, Peter Abrahams, Nadine Gordimer, and Alex la Guma. Four of the essays were previously published, three are chapters from a doctoral dissertation, one is a chapter from an unpublished book, and one was originally written for this volume. It should come as no surprise that the essays vary in their approach and do not consistently deal with the issues raised by the editor in his introductory essay.

Approximately half of the essays take an approach implied by the subtitle, "Essays in Criticism and Society," by trying to relate the author's personal life and position in South African society to his or her fiction. This is done with varying degrees of success related to such disparate factors as the stature of the author and availability of biographic material about him or her, the length of the critical essay, and the original context in which the essay was written. The remaining essays, all of which are on living writers, are primarily summaries of selected portions of the authors' works in the sociological tradition of criticism. None of the authors' statements on their own work are incorporated in the essays, although ample materials by such writers as Nadine Gordimer and Alex la Guma are available.

There is a marked difference in bibliographic support for the first five and last four essays as represented in the "Notes." Since there is no bibliography, it is not possible to know what additional sources were consulted. However, in terms of both the content of the essays and the published bibliographic support, one wonders what data have been included in these essays by South African critics that could not have been included by western critics. There is no evidence that archival materials or interviews were used to obtain information about the authors or their novels.

The quotation at the beginning of the review was made in reference to western critics. Obviously, it applies to these South African critics too, but for different sociocultural reasons. South African critics develop critical biases from their immersion in and, in the case of the critics writing in this volume, their rejection of their own society. Western critics develop critical biases related to their cultural distance from South Africa's unique social milieu. In both cases the result is criticism which is too narrow in scope to provide understanding, and which is more sociological than literary.

2nd Quarter, 1980 69

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