Novelists Break Through South Africa's Old Literary Line
by Stanley Meisler
Commentary by Stanley Meisler
January 28, 1968
January 1968
Cape Town, South Africa
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In the past, novels in Afrikaans, the language of the Dutch-descended whites of South Africa, were mainly pastoral, patriotic and puritanical. Now two Afrikaner novelists are writing books that break the line. The Afrikaner literary set likes to describe the new novels as "the renaissance in Afrikaans prose." That's overblowing it, but the novels do have significance, for politics as well as art. The two novelists are Etienne Leroux and Andre P. Brink, who call themselves the "sestigers," the men of the 60s. They explore sex, evil and decadence, and sometimes treat their Afrikaner characters with irony. For Africa's Old South Africa in the 17th century. It simplified in centuries of use and changed under the influence of English, French, German and Portuguese. By the turn of the 20th century, it was spoken by most of the Dutch-descended Boers in South Africa, but it was considered a kitchen language. The official languages were English and Dutch. No one wrote books in Afrikaans...
In the past, novels in Afrikaans, the language of the Dutch-descended whites of South Africa, were mainly pastoral, patriotic and puritanical. Now two Afrikaner novelists are writing books that break the line. The Afrikaner literary set likes to describe the new novels as "the renaissance in Afrikaans prose." That's overblowing it, but the novels do have significance, for politics as well as art. The two novelists are Etienne Leroux and Andre P. Brink, who call themselves the "sestigers," the men of the 60s. They explore sex, evil and decadence, and sometimes treat their Afrikaner characters with irony. For Africa's Old South Africa in the 17th century. It simplified in centuries of use and changed under the influence of English, French, German and Portuguese. By the turn of the 20th century, it was spoken by most of the Dutch-descended Boers in South Africa, but it was considered a kitchen language. The official languages were English and Dutch. No one wrote books in Afrikaans...
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