Writers bear witness: South African English literature before 1948

WRITERS BEAR WITNESS: SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH LITERATURE BEFORE 1948

Dr Rohan Quince, author; Jillian Vigrass, teacher and author; Jeremy Fogg, researcher

Thursday 29 January  11.15 am  COURSE FEES R115; Staff and students R58

Between the 1820s and 1948, writers from Thomas Pringle to Alan Paton told the story of South Africa. Pringle, ‘the father of South African literature’, described the 1820s Cape landscape and people, and advocated for the rights of both settlers and indigenous people. Olive Schreiner captured life in the Karoo in her 1883 novel, The Story of an African Farm. In the 1870s and 1880s, Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd translated the stories and experiences of the |Xam.

Sol Plaatje’s Boer War Diary and Denys Reitz’s Commando recorded the Boer War. South Africans participated in the two world wars, and authors like Reitz and Guy Butler described their experiences.

In 1924 Roy Campbell became the first South African poet to achieve international acclaim with Flaming Terrapin. Authors like Pauline Smith, William Plomer, Thomas Mofolo and Herman Charles Bosman conveyed the complexities of our society. In 1947, on the eve of apartheid, Alan Paton published Cry the Beloved Country, a novel that conveys, with deep empathy, the plight of a rural Zulu father searching for his lost son in Johannesburg.

In narration and performance we show how South African writers up to 1948 shone a light on South African history.

Recommended reading

Bosman, HC. 1947. Mafeking Road. Johannesburg: Central News Agency. Mofolo, T. 1925. Chaka. Lesotho: Waveland Press.

Paton, A. 1948. Cry the Beloved Country. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Plaatje, S. 1916. Native Life in South Africa. Johannesburg: Pan McMillan South Africa. Schreiner, O. 1883. The Story of an African Farm. London: Chapman and Hall.

TO BOOK: https://www.webtickets.co.za/performance.aspx?itemid=1575245009

Jillian Vigrass Gorton studied for a BA and a Secondary Teacher’s Diploma at UCT, graduating in 1972. She has been a life-long teacher of English, in state schools in South Africa, the United Kingdom and, after independence, in Zimbabwe, and then in international schools in Ethiopia, Portugal and Switzerland. Her play, Chimurenga Children , set on Zimbabwean Independence Day, was staged in 2022 in Geneva. Her children’s book, Ozzee the Mozzee, on how to avoid getting malaria, was published in April 2024. Together with Rohan Quince, she has presented Writers Bear Witness lectures in Europe and South Africa.

Dr Rohan Quince grew up in Johannesburg. He taught English for forty years at schools and universities in South Africa and the United States. He is the author of Shakespeare in South Africa: Stage Productions during the Apartheid Era. He teaches a U3A course on Shakespeare and his Contemporaries and runs a weekly Shakespeare Club at the National Children’s Theatre in Johannesburg. He and Jeremy Fogg have performed together at the National Arts Festival. Together with Jillian Vigrass, he presented a series of Writers Bear Witness lectures at UCT Summer School in 2025.

Educated in Johannesburg, at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town, Jeremy Fogg taught for some years in both cities. He became Researcher at the National English Literary Museum (now Amazwi Museum of South African Literature) in Grahamstown/ Makhanda, in 1986 and retired from that institution as Deputy Director in 2013. With Professor Paul Walters, he has published widely on the life and writings of Olive Schreiner. Together with his school friend, Rohan Quince, he participated in the National Arts Festival in 2017 - 2019.