1st Edition
The Short Story in South Africa Contemporary Trends and Perspectives
1. Introduction: The short story in South Africa – new trends and perspectives
Corinne Sandwith, Rebecca Fasselt and Khulukazi Soldati-Kahimbaara
2. “Translated from the dead”: The legibility of violence in Ivan Vladislavić’s 101 Detectives
Kirby Manià
3. Coloured by history, shaped otherwise: A "decolonial" reading of Zoë Wicomb
Aretha Phiri
4. Hyper-compression and the rise of the deep surface: Flash fiction in "post-transitional" South Africa
Peter Blair
5. Queer temporalities in two short stories by Makhosazana Xaba: The afterlife of Can Themba’s "The Suit"
Cheryl Stobie
6. Queerying examples of contemporary South African short fiction
Sally Ann Murray
7. Therianthropic power in Mohale Mashigo’s speculative short fiction
Christiaan Naudé
8. Navigating the spectacular in queer African erotic short fiction
Jenny Boźena du Preez
9. Imagining Africa’s futures in two Caine Prize-winning stories: Henrietta Rose-Innes’s "Poison" and NoViolet Bulawayo’s "Hitting Budapest"
Aghogho Akpome
10. On reading, writing and being read: Journeying with the short story
Makhosazana Xaba
11. Short stories born from the womb of the past
Siphiwo Mahala
12. "Concrete fragments": An interview with Henrietta Rose-Innes
Graham K. Riach
13. LongStorySHORT: Decolonising the reading landscape – A conversation with Kgauhelo Dube
Corinne Sandwith, Khulukazi Soldati-Kahimbaara and Rebecca Fasselt
14. "My stories will remain written the way I talk": A conversation with Niq Mhlongo
Rebecca Fasselt and Corinne Sandwith
Biography
Rebecca Fasselt is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Corinne Sandwith is Professor of English at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
"This volume of essays offers an up-to-the-minute overview of the extraordinarily diverse and vibrant palette of short story forms to be found in South Africa today. Combining critical acuity, theoretical eclecticism, and remarkable thematic breadth, this wonderful and timely volume provides a multiplicity of insights into a genre that refracts the complexity, the challenges, but also sheer energy of contemporary South African social dynamics."
Russell West-Pavlov, Universität Tübingen, Germany
"This volume is a groundbreaking, illuminating and incisive engagement with and interrogation of the exploration of a wider dimension of human experience that the short story genre post-2000 tackles. Setting up an interaction between the critic and literary craftsman, it will certainly provide an invaluable contribution to South African literary scholarship."
Jabulani Mkhize, University of Fort Hare, South Africa
"The Short Story in South Africa: Contemporary Trends and Perspectives provides a scholarly update on recent developments in South African short fiction, such as flash fiction, anti-detective modes, explorations of queer temporalities and spaces, and speculative Afrofuturistic dystopias. The essays in the volume are engaging, accessible, and pay close attention to textual detail – the kind of attention that short stories in particular reward."
Sue Marais, Rhodes University, South Africa
