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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.

Type
Articles
Information
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