Sophiatown

Sophiatown was the 'Chicago of South Africa', a vibrant community that produced not only gangsters and shebeen queens but leading journalists, writers, musicians and politicians, and gave urban African culture its rhythm and style. This play, based on the life history of Sophiatown, opened at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg in February 1986 to great acclaim. The play won the AA Life Vita Award for Playwright of the Year 1985/86. This new edition of the play includes an introduction which sets the work in its historical context.

"A thorough examination of Alfred B. Xuma's life and times, Gish's study not only broadens our understanding of African nationalism at a crucial period, but also sheds light on white liberalism, Pan Africanism, and the world of the educated African elite."--BOOK JACKET.

Takes you to sites related to the remarkable story of the opposition to South Africa's apartheid system, a saga that culminated in the country's transition to non-racial democracy in the early 1990s.

Annotation Chronicles the development of dramatic writing and performance from the time South Africa was established to post-apartheid. Investigates the impact of sketches and manifestos, and the oral preservation of scripts that could not be written.

First Published in 1998. This is Volume VI, of thirteen in the Urban and Regional Sociology series. Written in 1953, this text is a thematic apperception test study which presents the results of some six years' research into the urban African personality as it has evolved in the major industrial area of the Union of South Africa, is an attempt to bridge this gap between opinions and facts.

The autobiography of a young South African black who changed from street tough to political activist.

Writing as Resistance charts the inner workings of apartheid, through the encounters-- imprisonment, exile, and homecoming-- that crucially defined its violent reign and ultimate overthrow. Author Paul Gready demonstrates the transformative nature of autobiographical narrative as resistance in the context of political struggle. This multidisciplinary study addresses a range of important contemporary topics: migration, postcolonialism, globalization, nationalism, human rights, and political democratization, among others. While informed by the work of South African writers-- including Breytenbach, Coetzee, First, Krog, Modisane, and Serote-- and adding to the literature on the apartheid era, this book speaks to all cultures of violence. With this important work Gready sheds new light on the relationship between violence and creativity.