This book demonstrates the insights that literature brings to transdisciplinary urban studies, and particularly to the study of cities of the South. Starting from the claim staked by mining capital in the late nineteenth century and its production of extractive and segregated cities, it surveys over a century of writing in search of counterclaims through which the literature reimagines the city as a place of assembly and attachment. Focusing on how the South African city has been designed to funnel gold into the global economy and to service an enclaved minority, the study looks to the literary city to advance a contrary emphasis on community, conviviality and care. An accessible and informative introduction to literature of the South African city at significant historical junctures, this book will also be of great interest to scholars and students in urban studies and Global South studies.

This book’s point of departure rests on the premises that dimensions of the mainstream inclusive city discourse fail to capture in detail vulnerable clusters of society (being women, children, and the aging), the minority clusters (i.e., the blind, the disabled), and migrants. In addition, it fails to recognize the increase of spatial inequality driven by racial and class differences—a factor that has seen an increase in community violence and protests. The focus on spatial inequality has, for a long time, blind-folded urban authorities to ignore exclusion arising out of the same environments created with a notion of creating inclusivity. Hence this book “collapses spatial walls” as it seeks to uncover the true perspectives of inclusivity in cities beyond spatial dimensions but within social realms. The depth of this book’s enquiry rests on its critical investigation of Southern African cities’ through historical epochs of apartheid and colonialism in the region.

A pioneering account of how South Africa's three leading cities were fashioned, experienced, promoted and perceived.

This book addresses the way cities have given rise to key aesthetic dispositions that are central to debates in World Literature.

The renaissance in urban theory draws directly from a fresh focus on the neglected realities of cities beyond the west and embraces the global south as the epicentre of urbanism. This Handbook engages the complex ways in which cities of the global south and the global north are rapidly shifting, the imperative for multiple genealogies of knowledge production, as well as a diversity of empirical entry points to understand contemporary urban dynamics. The Handbook works towards a geographical realignment in urban studies, bringing into conversation a wide array of cities across the global south – the ‘ordinary’, ‘mega’, ‘global’ and ‘peripheral’. With interdisciplinary contributions from a range of leading international experts, it profiles an emergent and geographically diverse body of work. The contributions draw on conflicting and divergent debates to open up discussion on the meaning of the city in, or of, the global south; arguments that are fluid and increasingly contested geographically and conceptually. It reflects on critical urbanism, the macro- and micro-scale forces that shape cities, including ideological, demographic and technological shifts, and constantly changing global and regional economic dynamics. Working with southern reference points, the chapters present themes in urban politics, identity and environment in ways that (re)frame our thinking about cities. The Handbook engages the twenty-first-century city through a ‘southern urban’ lens to stimulate scholarly, professional and activist engagements with the city.

This anthology comprises of interviews with contemporary South African authors, offering vignettes of their lives and summaries of their works. In curating this book, Danyela Demir and Olivier Moreillon step beyond pure literary theory and analysis. They welcome the authors to speak and assess the literary panorama in which they live and co-create. However, Demir and Moreillon also trace concepts and terms that describe the current South African literature, such as post-transitional literature and literature beyond 2000. By adopting a world-literary approach to (post)apartheid literature, this book contributes to debates on contemporary South African writing. In addition, Tracing the (Post)Apartheid Novel Beyond 2000 seeks to raise awareness of the imbalance in both critical and public attention between literary ‘big names’, such as André P. Brink, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and Zakes Mda, who are popular worldwide, and the younger and newer generation of South African writers, who go largely unnoticed. Print edition not for sale in Sub Saharan Africa.

The South African novel of identity that "deserves a wide audience on a par with Nadine Gordimer."

In the wake of apartheid, South African culture conveys the sense of being lost in time and space. The Truth Commission provided an opportunity for South Africans to find their bearings in a nation changing at a bewildering pace; the TRC also marked the beginning of a long process of remapping space, place, and memory. In this groundbreaking book, Shane Graham investigates how post-apartheid theatre-makers and writers of fiction, poetry, and memoir have taken this project forward, using their art to come to terms with South Africa’s violent past and rapidly changing present.

The essays in this volume all circle around questions of urbanisation in (post-)apartheid South Africa and its effects on the country's socio-political realities, as well as its representation in-and effect on-the country's literary and artistic production. The included essays discuss the constant flow of people (not only into, within, and out of a city, but also between different cities), the continuously changing conditions (both physical and immaterial as well as past and present) of (South) Africa's urban areas, and these shifting conditions' effects on (South) Africa's cities. (Series: Swiss African Studies / Schweizerische Afrikastudien - Etudes africaines suisses, Vol. 12) [Subject: African Studies, Urban Studies, Sociology]