Xhosa literature

Spoken and printed words
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-84701-452-8
Verlag: James Currey

Buch, Englisch, Band 6, 400 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 722 g

Reihe: Publications of the Opland Collection of Xhosa Literature

Essays examining isiXhosa oral literature, novels and journalism and the interconnections between them in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Xhosa Literature: Spoken and Printed Words consists of fourteen essays addressing Xhosa literature in three media - the spoken word, newspapers and books. Literary critics tend to focus on Xhosa literature published in books; some attention has been paid to Xhosa oral poetry and tales, but by and large the contribution of newspapers to the development of Xhosa literature has been overlooked. This book explores aspects of Xhosa literature in all three media, and their interconnections.

Six of the essays treat historical narratives (amabali) and praise poetry (izibongo), setting out the social and ritual function of poetry and the poet (imbongi), mapping changes in the izibongo of three poets as South Africa moved towards democracy in the 1990s, and analysing recordings of two poems recited by S.E.K. Mqhayi. Three essays are devoted to the first Xhosa novel, Mqhayi's U-Samson (1907), to the publication of the greatest novel in Xhosa, A.C. Jordan's Ingqumbo yeminyanya (1940), and to the first published poem in praise of Nelson Mandela, D.L.P. Yali-Manisi's 'UNkosi Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela' (1954). There follow accounts of Xhosa literature in the nineteenth century and the appropriation of the press by Xhosa editors towards the end of that century, of Nontsizi Mgqwetho's fiery poetry published in Umteteli wa Bantu and of poems by Mgqwetho and Mqhayi published in Abantu-Batho, two Johannesburg newspapers. The volume concludes with an exposition of an imaginative response to David Yali-Manisi and his poetry.

University of KwaZulu-Natal Press: Southern African Development Community

Autoren/Hrsg.

Opland, Jeff

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Afrikanische Literaturen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

Foreword by Peter T. Mtuze

Prologue

1. Oral tradition, books, newspapers

Oral tradition

2. History as literature

3. Two recorded poems by S.E.K. Mqhayi

4. Izibongo as invocation

5. The imbongi as trickster (with P.A. McAllister)

6. Izibongo on the cusp of change

Books

7. The first Xhosa novel: S.E.K. Mqhayi's U-Samson (1907)

8. The publication of A.C. Jordan's novel, Ingqumbo yeminyanya (1940)

9. The earliest published poem on Nelson Mandela (1954)

Newspapers

10. Nineteenth-century Xhosa literature

11. Fighting with the pen

12. The newspaper as empowering medium: the case of Nontsizi Mgqwetho

13. Abantu-Batho and the Xhosa poets

Epilogue

14. A creative response to izibongo: The Dassie and the Hunter (2005)

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Opland, Jeff
JEFF OPLAND held appointments at the University of Cape Town, University of Durban-Westville and Rhodes University and taught at the Universities of Toronto, Yale, and Leipzig as well as Vassar College before his retirement.