Literature

            The literature plays an important role is South Africa and highlight important authors like Nadine Gardimer, Zakes Mda and Mongane Wally Serote. The traditional sources are the proverbs, stories, fable and historical narrative.

Oral or written poetry in South Africa covering various topics such as traditional medicine, Commentaries on the Laws or the latest news, passing by the marital problems or the rate of inflation.

           The novel is a literary form imported. One characteristic of the South African narrative is the absence of the heroic novel or glorification of national figures. In the oral tradition, a high percentage of authors and storyteller have been women.  This oral tradition goes back many centuries ago and has been passed down from generation to generation.  In its beginnings the literature in Afrikaans focused on the themes of the mother country and of the political and linguistic struggles of the Afrikaner. The beginnings of the literature in English in South Africa  portrayed the romanticism of the borders and tragic realism. The first African literature written in English was born in the late twentieth century in the missionary school in training institute. The works came from the romantic towards the take of awareness, after the slaughter of Sharpeville and uprisings soweto in 1976, the resistant literature emerged within of the universal contemporary literature and the south African authors more important are found Nadine Gordimer who received the novel prize of literature in 1991, also Zakes Mda and Mongane Wally Serote.

We want to talk about the most important authors like Nadine Gordimer who is a South African narrator and essay- writer; she was the first African woman that received Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991.

Among her literary works have eight novels and a lot of short stories and who is considered the main representative of South African literature. Her short stories are linked to the liberty of black population and against of Apartheid regime, for this reason many of her works have been forbidden by the South African authorities  like “place to love (1963)” and “the last bourgeois (1966)”. Her first work was “the soft voice of the serpent (1953)” even her first novel “the lying days”

As the South Africa situation deteriorates, the literary works of Gordimer are more committed and which publish “July’s people (1981)” which won the prize Grinzane Cavour. Among her most recent works is “my son’s story (1990)”

On the other hand is known Zakes Mda. He is considered one of the most important South African authors. Author of plays and novels, he is a journalist, artist, poet and university professor. Mda is the founder of the Southern African Media Program AIDS. He participates since 1985 in AIDS education; Zakes Mda has produced many writings on the topic for theater and television. Since 1996 he is also Director Thapama Productions where he worked in several film productions. Among the many awards he has received include the prestigious Mda Commonwealth Writers Prize 2001, the African region Fiction Award and the Sunday Times 2001 The Heart of Redness, and the Olive Schreiner Prize Paper Award and M-Net.

Furthermore another important author is Mongane Wally Serote. He is a poet and novelist and is an influential figure in the 'cultural policy' in South Africa he was one of the first figures in protrudes during the 70s. His first book of verse was Yakhal ' inkomo (1972) and then he published four more and in 1981 he published his first novel called “to every birth its blood”.  He was banished to the end of the seventies, and returned to South Africa in 1990 and headed the Section of Arts and Culture of African National Congress.

South Africa has important representatives that show the fight and worth facing situation like the apartheid regime and they expressed through writing and the South African people appreciate.