Race, Nation, Translation: South African Essays, 1990–2013

Wicomb, a South African novelist (David’s Story), short story writer, and literary and cultural critic, assembles some of her best previously published essays, spanning three decades of a brilliant career. Part one includes insightful essays about politics and culture written beginning in the late apartheid period, including the playful “Remembering Nelson Mandela,” a version of which was originally published in the New Yorker. Part two includes scholarly, dense essays focused on questions of reading and authorship, in which Wicomb engages thoughtfully with the works of fellow South African writers J.M. Coetzee, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, and Ivan Vladislavic. Part three concludes with a recent interview with the author. The value of this book lies in its insider-outsider perspective: Wicomb was born in South Africa but left in the 1970s and has lived in Scotland for most of her career. She explains, “My life, however, remained immersed in South Africa in the sense that all my work, creative and critical, was centered in the place that I did not live.” Because of the highly specialized and technical vocabulary, the general reader will struggle with the text. The audience is limited to advanced students of postcolonial studies or literary and linguistic scholars with extensive background knowledge of South African literature, politics, and culture. (Nov.)