The first fictional works to emerge from South Africa were produced by immigrants. These colonial writers were unsettled and intrigued by what they perceived to be exotic elements of indigenous cultures.

It was Rider Haggard, who wrote many mythical and adventure stories, beginning in the early 1880s. His most famous book is King Solomon's Mines (1886), a bestseller in its day. He also produced subsequent novels such as Allan Quartermain and She (both 1887). The central character in each book being the macho hunter Allan Quartermain, Haggard's ideal of the colonial gentleman.

These novels follow his various adventures in the "darkest Africa" of the European imagination, fixated on mysterious white queens and hidden treasures in ancient cities.

Although Haggard wrote many other adventures and fantasies, it is his highly coloured African works that are still read today.

Truly South African voices

Olive Schreiner

Olive Schreiner's novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883) is generally considered to be the founding text of South African literature. Schreiner was born on a mission station and worked as a governess on isolated Karoo farms. The famous novel tells the story of several colourful characters representing aspects of South African society of its day.

The novel draws on the post-romantic sensibility of Wuthering Heights, and depicts rural South African life with authenticity. It has been criticised for its silence with regard to the black African presence in South Africa, but it is still a key text in the formation of a truly South African voice. Schreiner's other work includes a critique of Cecil John Rhodes's brutal form of colonialism, Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland (1897), and the polemical Women and Labour (1911).

Douglas Blackburn

Douglas Blackburn was a maverick British journalist who came to South Africa when the Transvaal was still a Boer republic, and stayed during the Anglo Boer War and beyond. In several newspapers, he denounced British colonial attitudes as well as satirising Boer corruption. He wrote two novels set in this world, Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp (1899) and A Burgher Quixote (1903), capturing with a great deal of humour the personality and situation of the Boer at the time.

His later novel Leaven (1908) is one of the first South African novels to portray what life was really like for `peasants’ forced into urban labour. Love Muti (1915) attacks British colonial attitudes. Blackburn is not read much today, but his work is an important contribution to a developing South African literature - and style.

The Emergence of black writing

It was not until the 20th century that literature by black South Africans emerged.  As is African tradition – oral storytelling was the keystone for culture.

The first generation of mission-educated African writers sought to restore dignity to Africans by invoking and reconstructing a heroic African past.

Page 2...