Art Talk, Politics Talk - Blurb |
From the introductory question – how to talk about art in a politically
demanding milieu – to meditations on writers ranging from J.M. Coetzee
to Nelson Mandela, Salman Rushdie to Nadine Gordimer, Michael Chapman
offers a continually surprising, consistently intellectual, and boldly
original consideration of literary-cultural tradition and innovation
that in many ways is a model for the world.
The essays –
self-contained yet cumulative in their argument and insight – locate
ethical and aesthetic challenges in the postcolonial condition of our
times, both in South Africa (post-apartheid) and globally (post-Berlin
Wall). What is Africa, what is the West? May the South and the North
engage in fruitful conversation? Perspectives on the significance of an
oral past – the role of the Xhosa voice in the development of modern
African literature – are set in comparison with explorations of both
the folktale and the modernist lyric, or relationships involving
Africa, India and eastern Europe.
Teasing out the intricate
value of literary culture in contemporary society Chapman in lucid
prose brings to this volume a new confidence and critical vocabulary
that both energises older controversies and marks out fresh ground for
debate.
University of KwaZulu-Natal Press
2006
ISBN 1-86914-069-9
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