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This collection of essays analyzes the work of 29 authors and illustrators. South African children's and youth literature has a long history. The country is the most prolific publisher of children's books on the continent, producing perhaps the highest quality literature in Africa. Its traditions resonate within the larger world of children's literature but are solidly grounded in African myth and archetypes. The African diaspora in the U.S. and elsewhere have stories rooted in these oral traditions. Much has changed in South African literature for children since the 1994 transformation of the country. A field once dominated by all white and mostly female writers and illustrators has diversified, adding many new voices.
Takadu the aardvark is organising a surprise fig party for Noko's birthday and he invites all the animals except greedy Hyena, whose manners are too terrible. Takadu spends a long hot day at the fig tree picking a great big basket of figs. But Hyena follows him secretly, determined to steal the figs and spoil the party. How Takadu manages to give Noko an exciting birthday is hilariously told, in this second of the series about the lovable Takadu and Noko.
When the village girls cruelly trick the daughter of their king, he will forgive them only if they kill Nabulela, a treacherous white-skinned monster.
On a considered whim writer Karin Cronje packs up her life and flies across the world to teach English in a small Korean village. The result is a poignant, heart-achingly funny, scandalous, and deeply moving account of incomprehension, awe, dislocation, belonging, the sticky business of identity and the loss of it, sanity, and the loss of that. Characters like Dae-ho, her guru man, who reminds her to breathe; dazzling Mae and her bar, Goldfinger; Leona with her rattle snake tongue, and all the others she cant understand are now the people in her life. Back home is her son who has fallen in with a suspect character and her friends who now seem like dung beetles each rolling their own ball of muck. They, together with the tip of the African continent, are about to disappear into the sea. She has only herself. And that sure as hell feels inadequate. With her inimitable voice Karin Cronje shocks and delights as she digs deeply into the full catastrophe of being human.
Feeling that none of her suitors is sweet enough for her, a naughty princess makes a prince out of sugar but soon learns that a real prince is better than a sugar one, no matter how sweet.
"Postcolonial Polysystems: The Production and Reception of Translated Children s Literature in South Africa" is an original and provocative contribution to the field of children s literature research and translation studies. It draws on a variety of methodologies to provide a perspective, both product- and process-oriented, on the ways in which translation contributes to the production of children s literature in South Africa, with a special interest in language and power, as well as post- and neocolonial hybridity. The book explores the forces that affect the use of translation in producing children s literature in various languages in South Africa, and shows how some of these forces precipitate in the selection, production and reception of translated children s books in Afrikaans and English. It breaks new ground in its interrogation of aspects of translation theory within the multilingual and postcolonial context of South Africa, as well as in its innovative experimental investigation of the reception of domesticating and foreignising strategies in translated picture books. The book has won the 2013 EST Young Scholar Prize."
This book explores the use of drama or theatre texts about, as approaches to, or methodologies for, interventions in conflict and post-conflict contexts. It maps the role of drama/theatre in the centre and in the aftermath of overt and direct conflict, traces how the relationship between drama/theatre and conflict is shaping the socio-cultural, political, and aesthetic landscapes of these contexts, and engages with drama/theatre as methodologies to address or forge new relationships around conflict. As such, it deals with the transformative abilities of drama/theatre in contexts where conflict or violence is overt or covert in its effects, expressions and modes of social control in a range of geographical constituencies. It includes chapters predominantly from South Africa, but also from rural Nigeria and New Zealand, reflecting work on conflict in prisons, tertiary and secondary education, cities, villages and families. It also contains two new original play scripts, both resulting in acclaimed performances: Hush, on family violence in New Zealand, and The Line, on xenophobia in South Africa.
Takudu the Aardvark and Noko the Porcupine live at the foot of the Mbombo hills. They have a good life, but every night, Takudu shakes and shivers because he is afraid of the night monster. So one morning Noko sets out on a quest to cure Takudu of his fear.