Three decades short

Abstract

Ever since the renewal in Afrikaans prose brought about by the works of the so-called “Sestigers” (Men of the Sixties”), there has been a great deal of interest in the Afrikaans short story. During the past three decades contemporary South African social and political problems and conflicts came to the fore in these works. The question is posed as to why there was more emphasis on renewal of form in the prose of the Sixties, and not on important socio-political themes. In this article important trends, lines of living constants, are closely examined, starting with the so-called “border literature” of the Seventies and ending with the Nineties, the decade in which female authors dominated. The soldier as a figure of displacement and marginalization is added to the interpretation of the “border literature” of the Seventies and Eighties. The paper concludes with a discussion of a new relationship to alarming aspects of Africa, especially the irrational elements, which became apparent during the last half of the previous century.