Oom Schalk's Boer War: Herman Charles Bosman, Afrikaner outsider, writes a wider war

Cuthbertson, Greg

doi:10.1080/00232080585380031

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Bosman's English education was completed at Jeppe Boys’ High School in Johannesburg as well as the University of the Witwatersrand. ‘Nevertheless, his Afrikaner identity was never far from the surface, emerging at various moments in his life and drawing on his very short teaching career of about five‐and‐a‐half months in the Western Transvaal in 1926’ (Cuthbertson, 2007: 148) 14…”

Section: Herman Charles Bosman and Mafikeng Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is in Afrikaans contexts such as that of the Western Transvaal that much of Bosman's literary works are set. Ideologically, Cuthbertson (2007: 145) clearly aligns Bosman's work with post‐Anglo‐Boer War attempts to construct a broad unity across the two White groups of South Africa, attempts often associated iconically with the figure of Jan Smuts: 15 ‘Bosman was in many ways an advocate of “South Africanism” which was an important consequence of the South African War as a new, racialized “nation” was formed through the complex interaction of imperial forces and local nationalisms.’ Much of his work is thus characterized by a cultural and linguistic hybridity reflective of his own hybrid nature. Well‐known in this regard, to some extent to the broader (local) reading public as well, are his collections of short‐stories set in a rural area of the far Western Transvaal (the Groot Marico) of the period, Mafikeng road being one of them 16…”

Section: Herman Charles Bosman and Mafikeng Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

Bekker

2020

World Englishes

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According to Schneider's (2003, 2007) dynamic model of the evolution of postcolonial Englishes, the phase of endonormative stabilization is ‘reflected in the emergence of a new and vigorous cultural phenomenon, viz. literary creativity in English, rooted in the new culture and adopting elements of the new language variety’ (Schneider, 2007: 50). In the South African context, endonormative stabilization is dated as beginning with the advent of non‐racial democracy in South Africa (that is, in 1994), linked, according to Schneider (2017: 188), to ‘a broadly based and generally recognized literary creativity, spearheaded by two recent Nobel laureates: Nadine Gordimer in 1991 and J. M. Coetzee in 2003.’ In this paper, this conclusion is challenged by pointing to what Brink (1976: 42) refers to as a ‘vital and viable new literature’ in English which emerged in the first half of the 20th‐century and which often had a striking emphasis on the interrelationship between English and the Afrikaans IDG‐strand; thus constituting a form of postcolonial English which arose well before the examples mentioned by Schneider.

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Section: Herman Charles Bosman and Mafikeng Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Herman Charles Bosman and Mafikeng Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

Bekker

2020

World Englishes

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A Select Bibliography of South African History: Journal Articles, Review Articles and Theses 2006

Napaai

Suttie

2008

South African Historical Journal

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Bosman: A proto-postcolonial author?

Loonate

2022

Literator

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Bosman scholars tend either to have focused on the humour and entertainment value of his works or to have leaned towards appreciation for the satirical quality of his writing and the serious political commentary that accompanies and underpins it. Building on these insights, the present study investigates Bosman’s preoccupation with South Africa’s politics in order to determine whether he could be classified a ‘proto-postcolonial author’. It discusses key features of postcolonial theory and writing and elucidates the term ‘proto-postcolonial’. It then analyses selected texts in terms of their political themes – five short stories from the collections Ramoutsa Road (1987), Unto Dust (1991) and the novel Willemsdorp (written in 1951, first published in 1977). The focus is on Bosman’s form of subtle protest against contemporary inequalities and injustices through his use of satire and techniques such as parody, irony and other linguistic and stylistic devices. Political themes that emerge from this analysis – including the detrimental effects of colonisation, racism, displacement, subjugation, repression and hybridity – are echoed and developed further in discussion of other, subsequent postcolonial writing. This study, therefore, reveals Bosman as a precursor of this later important body of literature and as a writer ahead of his times who has earned his place as a ‘proto-postcolonial’ author.

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Oom Schalk's Boer War: Herman Charles Bosman, Afrikaner outsider, writes a wider war

Cited by 3 publications

References 13 publications

Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

Literary reflections of early postcolonial English in South Africa

A Select Bibliography of South African History: Journal Articles, Review Articles and Theses 2006

Bosman: A proto-postcolonial author?

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